Chapter Text
Under the woman’s guidance—Natsumi Kuzuryu, she’d introduced herself curtly—they moved to a boarded-up apartment building with better cover. Kuzuryu spent a moment scowling through a gap in the window coverings before turning to them.
“I’m heading west,” she said. “I’m not stupid enough to go through Shinjuku but if you two are really that suicidal, we can travel together at least part of the way.”
Komaeda opened his mouth to speak, but Hajime beat him to it. “Can we talk for a second?” He turned to Kuzuryu. “Do you mind keeping watch?”
“Make it quick,” she replied. “We’re losing daylight.”
He led Komaeda into an adjacent room, where a hole in the ceiling allowed a paltry beam of light into the dust-clogged air.
“You don’t trust her?” Komaeda asked lowly.
“That’s not the problem.” Hajime ran a hand through his hair. “If what she says is true, there’s nothing left in Shinjuku. We’re not going to find anyone looking for a cure there.”
His brows lowered. “And you’re willing to take her word on that?”
“I don’t think she has a reason to lie.” He gestured in the direction of the street. “There are armed gangs patrolling the streets. And let’s not forget the horde of infected that just ambushed us. We’d be taking one hell of a risk on the slim chance that anyone’s still breathing inside that building.”
“Are you ready to give up, Hinata?” Komaeda asked quietly. There was an edge to his voice. Hajime recognized it from Seikan Tunnel, the tense moment before they’d decided to brave the train wreck. “Where would you go in that case? Back to Sapporo?”
Komaeda’s gaze chilled him. Hajime resisted the urge to wrap his arms around himself. “I’m trying to keep both of us alive. I know you have this weird complex about things being as difficult as possible, but Kuzuryu’s right. We have shit intel.”
“The National Institute of Infectious Diseases is the best possible place to correct that,” Komaeda said. “Even if there are no surviving scientists, they’ll have left behind documentation. Locations of other facilities. They wouldn’t have centralized all their efforts in one location.”
“You don’t know that.” His hands curled into fists. “Komaeda, just admit that we have no idea what we’re doing. We can’t just keep going on a wild goose chase through a city that wants to kill us.”
“Suggest an alternative, then. I don’t think there’s a point to this conversation otherwise.” He raised his eyebrows. “Kuzuryu’s right—we’re losing daylight.”
Before Hajime could formulate a response, Komaeda stepped past him and through the doorway. He took a moment to try and breathe around the indignation and fear sitting in his throat.
He still had nightmares about the car, the river, the bag of supplies. Sometimes in the deep hours of the night he would think about what might have happened if he’d used his knife to try and cut the bag free. If he’d grabbed it from a different angle. If he’d come up for air and tried one more time to dive down and retrieve it. How many lives that bag could have saved.
“Fuck.” He buried his face in his hands, counted backwards from ten, then straightened and left the room. “Tell us what happened in Shinjuku.”
Komaeda looked up sharply, but Hajime didn’t meet his gaze.
Kuzuryu gave him a flat, unimpressed stare. “You saw those men outside. The ones in the truck.”
“Yeah.”
“You ever watch two dogs fight over a piece of meat until it splits right down the middle?”
Hajime frowned. “So there’s a turf war going on.”
“Was. One of the clans got their hands on some JSDF heavy artillery and blew Kabukicho to shit. The rest of the QZ is a no-man’s-land between what’s left of the clan territories.”
“Kabukicho…” Komaeda was already pulling the map of Tokyo from his pocket. He held it under a beam of light coming through the boarded-up window and scanned it. “It doesn’t look like we’ll need to go that far south.”
Kuzuryu snatched the map from him, ignored his affronted look, and looked it over. “Well, I’ll be splitting from you two morons before then.” She shoved it back in Komaeda’s direction without looking at him. “Let’s get a move on.”
Hajime grunted an agreement and made for the door, but she blocked his path with a firm hand on his chest.
“If you two do anything stupid out there,” she said lowly, “I’m gone. Don’t expect me to bail you out.”
“Understood,” Hajime replied, and she turned on her heel and pushed open the door.
He let Komaeda out next, then brought up the rear in their procession through the deadened streets.
The passing of another truck forced them to hide in an abandoned shopping center.
“What the hell are they doing?” Hajime muttered once they’d passed. “What’s the point of patrolling empty streets like this?”
“They might be looking for someone.” Komaeda gave him a significant look, then turned to Kuzuryu. “They must have heard the gunshots from earlier.”
She regarded them both with a stony expression. A tense moment of silence passed before she said, “Let’s cut through this building. We should try and stay off the street.”
They clicked their flashlights on and proceeded cautiously through the darkened atrium. The inside of the building was a wreck—all of the windows had been smashed, and the floor was strewn with bits of broken glass, overturned racks, and dark, unidentifiable masses that could have been dirty clothing or animal carcasses or something far worse.
The air began to lighten as they walked, and when Hajime looked up he realized part of the building had collapsed, as if some giant monster had carelessly swiped at the structure. Bits of gray sky were visible through the twisted metal beams and broken plaster. Rubble patch-worked with moss was piled high beneath the gaps.
Hajime scanned the mess with his flashlight. “Is it safe to walk through here?”
Kuzuryu, who was leading the way, glanced over her shoulder. “If you mean Tokyo, fuck no. And if you mean this building, I’d rather this than take my chances with the yakuza.”
They skirted as much of the rubble as they could, but soon it became necessary to climb over the debris. Hajime switched places with Komaeda so he could go first and help him over the taller pieces.
“Careful,” he muttered, eyeing a piece of jutting rebar.
“This almost makes me nostalgic for that train wreck,” Komaeda said as Hajime helped him over a broken steel beam.
Kuzuryu turned and shot them a look. “Do you guys get off on almost dying or something?”
“You know,” Hajime began. A rumble shook the floor, followed by the sound of crumbling concrete, and Komaeda’s arm slipped from his grasp. He whirled around, his heart lurching. “Komaeda!”
Part of the floor had collapsed, bits of dust hissing through the gap and into total darkness. Hajime shone his light into the hole and was relieved to find Komaeda moving at the bottom, wincing as he sat up. His relief was immediately swallowed by terror as the hoarse cry of an infected cut through the gloom.
“What the hell happened?” Kuzuryu asked.
Hajime drew his gun, Komaeda doing the same as he struggled to his feet. The infected came hurtling out of the darkness, only for its head to snap back as Komaeda shot it.
“Hey, see if you can find a rope or something,” Hajime called to Kuzuryu, his flashlight sweeping the limited space he could see through the gap. The second half of his sentence was swallowed by a chorus of shouts. Komaeda fired another shot into the darkness. Hajime’s mouth went dry. There were too many. He wouldn’t be able to cover him from up here.
He was already moving before his train of thought caught up with his body, climbing over the steel beam and crouching at the edge of the hole. He was bracing himself to jump down when the concrete beneath his feet gave way. He managed to turn his fall into a roll, his shoulder colliding painfully with the cracked tile floor.
A deafening crash filled the air along with a billowing cloud of dust as another chunk of the ceiling collapsed. Ears ringing, Hajime pushed himself to his feet and felt something snag his ankle. He shook off the fungus-mottled hand loosely grasping his leg, the rest of the infected’s body crushed beneath a slab of concrete. A body brushed against his, making him jump, but it was only Komaeda covering his six.
The collapse had disoriented the infected for a few moments, but it wouldn’t be long before they recovered. Through the settling dust, Hajime could barely make out the exteriors of another level of storefronts. Mangled bodies lurched towards them, milky eyes gleaming in the weak glow of their flashlights. He scanned their surroundings for a clear path through and saw Kuzuryu extract herself from the collapsed rubble, blood gleaming on her face.
“Come on!” Hajime pulled Komaeda along with him, shot an infected that lurched too close, and held out a hand to pull Kuzuryu upright. “Can you run?”
“No fucking choice,” she spat, pulling out her own gun, and the three of them made a break for it.
Infected lunged at them from the dark. Hajime had never thought he would miss Seikan Tunnel’s train wreck, but the cars had at least provided a bottleneck to contain the horde. They were sitting ducks in this shopping mall, the dust making it hard to see infected until they were almost on top of them. Hajime pushed Komaeda in front of him and brought up the rear, firing at the growing crowd of infected pursuing them.
Kuzuryu let out a curse and he squinted through the gloom. Up ahead was a set of long-dead escalators—heading down, further underground. A quick scan revealed no other exits. The three of them hurried down the steps without pausing for breath.
“Not the fucking subway,” Kuzuryu panted as they clambered over a broken row of ticket gates.
“The tunnels should lead us back to the surface,” Komaeda said. “Right?”
Hajime glanced behind them. The escalators had slowed the infected down somewhat, their haphazard bodies tumbling over one another, but it would only buy them a few seconds. “Let’s hope it does.”
They took off down the tunnel, the collective scream of the infected swelling against the walls. Hajime’s lungs were burning, his throat still stinging from the dust. He fought the urge to push himself into a sprint, instead making sure Komaeda was in front of him and that the infected were as far behind as his bullets could manage.
Kuzuryu shrieked out a curse and came to a halt so abruptly Hajime slammed into Komaeda’s back and only barely managed to prevent both of them from toppling over.
“Fucking spores,” she said, clamping her free hand over her nose and mouth, and Hajime realized the haze looming before them wasn’t just dust. He yanked his mask out of his pack and pulled it on. The color drained from Kuzuryu’s face as she watched him. She didn’t have any supplies except her gun.
“Not to worry. I have a spare.” Komaeda held out his mask.
Her eyebrows furrowed in split-second doubt. Hajime opened his mouth to protest, but they were out of time. The infected were almost on top of them. Kuzuryu secured the mask over her face and they ran.
Visibility was even worse inside the cloud of spores. Haphazard shapes danced among the particles with every movement of his flashlight. Hajime couldn’t tell if they were infected or mere tricks of the light. He emptied his gun into the horde behind them and drew his knife.
The burned-out skeleton of a train car jumped towards them out of the haze. Kuzuryu veered to the left, stumbling over the jagged pieces of siding littering the ground. An infected appeared from behind a broken panel, arms outstretched in Komaeda’s direction, and Hajime drove his knife into its neck, using his own momentum to knock it to the ground. He stumbled and righted himself just as the trilling cry of a clicker reached his ears.
Condensation from his sweat was beginning to fog the visor of his gas mask. Hajime reflexively wiped the spores from the exterior. He forced his legs to keep moving, his chest to keep sucking in lungfuls of filtered air. All he could see was Komaeda ahead of him, shoulders moving with labored breaths. He had to make sure he made it out of here. That was all that mattered.
A mess of gravel and broken stone interrupted their path. Kuzuryu scrambled up the slope and reached the ledge at the top—the remains of a station platform. The sight gave Hajime another burst of energy, and he fell into step beside Komaeda, half-dragging him up the pile of rubble. They followed Kuzuryu up the stairs, towards the dim gray sunlight shining ahead. As they left the spores behind, Hajime didn’t think he’d ever been so grateful to feel the bite of winter air.
The infected were still close behind, colliding with the ticket gates with a resounding crash. Fresh air wouldn’t mean anything if they couldn’t get something solid between them and the horde.
As they reached the top of the stairs Kuzuryu flung an arm out and pointed to something behind them. “There!”
A rusted set of coin lockers sat beside the stairwell entrance. Hajime threw his weight against one end of it. Kuzuryu grabbed an empty space where the door had been ripped off and helped him drag it towards the entrance. The metal base screamed against the tile.
“Fucking come on!”
Komaeda took a few shaky steps backward, his gun trained on the doorway. An infected slammed against the backside of the lockers. Hajime planted his feet and pushed the lockers the rest of the way over the doorway.
At the last moment, a clicker slipped through the gap, the tattered remains of its shirt snagging on the corner.
Kuzuryu stumbled back with a shriek. There was no time to reload. The clicker lunged at Komaeda with flailing arms, heedless of the empty click from his gun. Hajime drew his knife, knowing he wouldn’t make it in time, knowing he had to try anyway—
Metal whistled through the air and the clicker toppled to the ground. Hajime watched, dumbfounded, as its severed head wobbled on the floor like a dropped melon. A woman stood above its prone body, flicking blood from an honest-to-god katana.
“We need to move,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the clamoring of the infected against the lockers.
The three of them staggered behind her down the final stretch to the subway entrance. Cold air bit into his skin. Hajime braced a hand against a pillar and willed his legs to keep holding him upright.
Kuzuryu ripped the mask off her face. Sweat glued strands of hair to her skin. “Peko, thank fuck. How the hell did you find us?”
“I heard the commotion from outside.” The woman, apparently named Peko, wiped her katana clean with a rag and slid it into the sheath at her hip. “I had every intention of retreating, but…I had a feeling I needed to intervene.”
She let out a breathless laugh. “Some fucking instincts.”
Komaeda doubled over with a wheezing cough, making everyone freeze.
Kuzuryu turned to him, her smile fading into horror, then outrage. She advanced on him, brandishing the mask. “What the fuck? You said this was an extra.”
Hajime forced his spent muscles to move and intercepted her before she could reach him. “Back off.”
Kuzuryu ignored him and craned her neck to see over his shoulder. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why the fuck would you do that?” She threw the mask in Komaeda’s direction and it clattered against the ground.
“I—” Komaeda coughed again and spat. Every instinct demanded Hajime to turn around and check on him, but he was more concerned about keeping Kuzuryu and Peko at a distance. “I knew that was the only way you’d accept it.”
“You don’t even know me,” Kuzuryu said raggedly.
“Still, you needed it more than me.” Komaeda coughed again. “I’ve already been bitten.”
Hajime tensed. “Komaeda.”
“Shit.” Kuzuryu finally backed away, breathing hard. For the first time since they’d met her, she seemed to be at a loss for words.
Hajime risked a glance behind him. Komaeda was sitting against the wall, his hand pressed to his chest. The spores had tinged his hair yellow.
He turned back to the others. Kuzuryu was biting her lip so hard it had turned white. Peko was watching the proceedings with an unreadable expression, keeping one eye on their surroundings.
“I think it’s time we went our separate ways,” he said, and to Peko, “Thanks for the save back there.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” Peko cast a regretful glance in Komaeda’s direction and turned to Kuzuryu. “We need to move if we want to make it past the wall before dark.”
Blinking rapidly, Kuzuryu nodded. “Alright.” She took a step so she could look both Hajime and Komaeda in the eye. “I maintain that you’re both fucking insane, but…I won’t forget today. I won’t forget what either of you did.”
“Thank you,” Komaeda rasped.
“Good luck,” Hajime said, and didn’t take his eyes off them until they’d disappeared down the street.
They took shelter in the entryway of a parking garage and Hajime refused to move until Komaeda stopped wheezing. He cleaned himself off as best he could and kept watch while Komaeda took small sips of water in between cautious breaths.
The silence gave him time to stew. He was considering telling Komaeda off for what he’d done back there. Kuzuryu and Peko had helped them, true, but they were strangers. Either one of them could have decided this city didn’t need any more infected.
Komaeda stifled another cough and Hajime clenched his jaw. He was trying not to consider the possibility that he wasn’t impervious to spores like he thought. That even if he didn’t turn the cordyceps would take root in his lungs and choke him out anyway.
That clicker had been so close to killing him, and once again Hajime had been too slow and too far away to do anything. Everything had come so close to imploding he could taste blood in his mouth.
“According to Peko, we’ve made it into Shinjuku’s quarantine zone,” Komaeda rasped.
Hajime didn’t turn around.
“We’re not far from Toyama District. We should be able to make it before nightfall.”
“How do you see this playing out?”
“You mean beyond what I’ve already said?”
He turned to face Komaeda and leaned back against the concrete pillar. The bruises on his body from when the floor had collapsed were beginning to make themselves known.
“We both know the chances of finding anyone at the National Institute are basically zero.” He crossed his arms, ignoring the protest of his biceps. “So what are we looking for instead?”
“They must have kept in touch with other research facilities,” Komaeda said. Some of the color had returned to his face. “They’ll have kept records of those facility locations. Important correspondences. You mentioned other countries the other day—we might learn if there are people looking for a cure elsewhere in the world.”
“Right.” He looked down. There was blood smeared across the top of his boot, already congealing to a muddy brown. He was back in that car, swallowing mouthfuls of river water. If he didn’t move now he was going to lose momentum entirely. “Okay. Are you good to keep moving?”
Komaeda stood up like he’d been waiting for him to ask. “As long as we don’t have to do any more running today.”
“Don’t jinx it,” Hajime muttered, and led the way out into the cold.
As they ventured further into Shinjuku, it became clear how badly the turf war had ravaged this part of the city. Bullet holes pockmarked the walls. The cars on the street either had their windows blown out or had been burned to soot-stained husks. Hajime was no stranger to ruined cities, but it felt different knowing they were inside the walls of a quarantine zone. It felt more like a desecration than any damage the cordyceps had done.
Komaeda kept his city map out, muttering to himself as they walked. They came across the street where the building was located and Hajime felt a tug of anticipation behind his sternum. Neither of them bothered to look at the wrinkled memo—they’d both memorized the address a long time ago.
The National Institute of Infectious Diseases was housed in a wide gray building, unassuming but for the shattered remains of the two-story panel of windows that had once covered the entrance. Hajime had resigned himself to the fact that it would be empty, but seeing the building in this state still filled him with dread.
Komaeda didn’t break his stride, heading straight for the entrance and picking his way over broken glass and through one of the doorframes. Hajime clicked on his flashlight and swept it over the spacious lobby. The reception desk was covered in grime. The withered husk of a potted plant lay prone next to a cracked bench. There was no signage indicating where anything was.
“I have a feeling they’d keep any sensitive materials in the lower levels,” Komaeda said. “Let’s look for the stairs.”
The floor below was mostly office spaces. Hajime had imagined a place like this would be more stainless steel and complicated-looking lab equipment, but all they’d found so far were overstuffed bookshelves behind dusty desks. He held his flashlight while Komaeda searched and kept watch in case they weren’t alone down here.
The next basement level contained a few storage rooms filled with boxes of medical supplies and chemicals. A couple doors had been sealed off with tape and opaque plastic sheets. They avoided those with quiet footsteps.
At the very end of the hallway was a large room filled with workbenches and rolling carts and cluttered shelves. It was in disarray compared to the rest of the facility—pieces of furniture were knocked over, bottles and trays scattered on the floor. A light fixture dangled from the ceiling like a hanged man.
“Something went down here,” Hajime muttered, sweeping his light over the space.
His suspicions were confirmed when they came across the first smear of blood, so brown he would have mistaken it for mud if he hadn’t known better. He considered the flaking stain, the streak trailing away into the darkness. Someone had bothered to take the bodies away. It hadn’t been whoever had attacked this place, and it certainly hadn’t been infected. His stomach clenched. Someone had survived the attack and walked away.
“Hinata, will you help me with this?”
Komaeda was crouched behind one of the workstations a few rows down. Hajime found him examining a large radio lying on its side.
“Got it.” He lifted the radio onto the desktop and frowned at the cracked casing. “It’s probably busted, even if we could get it hooked up to some power.”
“Look at this.” Komaeda shone his flashlight on a piece of paper that had been taped to the side. Someone had written a series of numbers—radio frequencies. All but one had been crossed out with a thick black marker. Komaeda lifted his gaze and gave him a meaningful look.
They split up to search, sifting through drawers and scattered sheafs of paper in a widening radius around the radio. Hajime couldn’t help thinking of his frantic search through the dark in the JSDF records room. This was just another breadcrumb in a trail that was becoming longer and more dangerous the farther they went. He braced his clenched fists on the desk he was searching and closed his eyes.
“Hinata.” Komaeda’s voice was breathless with anticipation. “I think I found it.”
That got him moving again. He crossed the room and peered over Komaeda’s shoulder. The paper was wrinkled from being balled up but the handwriting was still legible. They were looking at a list of frequencies corresponding to the names of different locations. Some of them looked Chinese or Korean. They hurried together to cross-reference the list with the frequency listed on the radio.
“There.” Hajime pointed to an item halfway down the list. “Iejima, right?”
“That’s right,” Komaeda whispered. “The researchers here were still in contact with that facility.”
“Which could mean anything.” He braced a hand against the desk and wrestled with his frustration. “We don’t know how long ago their last contact was. We don’t even know where Iejima is. It could be just as abandoned as this place.”
Komaeda ignored him and pulled the road map from his pack. He spread it out over the desk and began scanning the tiny labels. Hajime joined him with the faint hope that Iejima was right outside Tokyo city limits.
The room was so quiet the distant crash startled him. He looked up just as the broken light fixture gave out and shattered against the floor.
“What the fuck was that?” He took a few steps towards the door, straining his ears. The noise had been far away, but loud enough to reach them underground.
“Another building collapsed, maybe?” Komaeda said.
Hajime thought back to the shopping center, the cataclysmic hole that had weakened the structure. He’d never seen damage like that before he’d come to Tokyo.
“We need to move.” He folded up the map, then shoved it and the list of frequencies into Komaeda’s pack. “We can deal with this once we’re somewhere safe.”
He took the lead down the hallway and up the stairs, and as they ascended he could hear the distant patter of gunfire. It wasn’t the isolated shots they’d heard coming into the city. Whoever was firing was using some kind of automatic weapon.
Kuzuryu had been telling the truth. The JSDF in Tokyo had been equipped with the kind of weaponry necessary to deal with thousands of infected. And those weapons had fallen into the wrong hands.
The gunfire grew louder once they reached the ground floor. The combatants sounded several blocks away, but that was still too close for comfort.
“We have to find a way out of the QZ.” Hajime took cover by the entrance and scanned the street. He glanced back at Komaeda. “Are you good to run?”
“I’ll be alright,” he said, his face set in grim determination.
“Okay.” His pulse had picked up into a panicky gallop. “Stay close.”
They took off, rounding the building and heading down one of the side streets. Hajime tried to remember which direction they’d come from. North would take them away from the center of the city, and hopefully further from whatever war zone was encroaching on them.
They’d just have to pray there was a way past the wall once they reached it.
Up ahead, another military truck passed by, briefly visible in the gap between buildings, and Hajime skidded to a halt with a curse. He grabbed Komaeda’s arm, prepared to steer them into cover, but it didn’t seem the truck had noticed them. He scanned the street and veered to the right, just to be safe.
The gunfire wasn’t getting any farther away. The shots were echoing off the buildings now, and Hajime was no longer sure which way they had to go to escape them. He’d trained as a soldier since he was a teenager but he’d never faced anything like this. Another explosion rocked a building a few blocks away and he flinched.
Komaeda nudged his arm and gestured with his gun. “Let’s try and cut through that apartment complex.”
He swallowed and nodded. If he panicked here both of them would die. He led the way across the street, skirting rusted cars, and climbed through a broken window on the ground floor. He helped Komaeda through and peered through the door and into the hallway beyond. It was dark and quiet except for the muffled sounds of gunfire. They hurried towards the backside of the building.
The alleyway beyond was dim and clogged with trash. Hajime ran to the door to the adjacent building and tried the handle. It only gave a few inches—something was blocking it on the other side.
“Let’s go around,” he said, a split second before a bullet shattered the brick next to his head. He swore and ducked against the doorway, pulling Komaeda with him.
A pair of men were advancing from the end of the alleyway. Hajime reached for his gun but Komaeda was already returning fire.
“I’ll cover you,” he said between shots.
This wasn’t the first time he’d tried to kill a non-infected human, Hajime observed distantly, then threw his weight against the door. The object on the other side budged a few inches. He grabbed the inside of the doorframe and used it for leverage as he widened the gap between the door and the wall. Once it was big enough to fit through he grabbed Komaeda and pulled him inside.
He slammed the door shut and blocked it again with an industrial-sized crate. They were inside a warehouse, a forest of rusted steel shelves filling the room. The alley behind them had gone quiet.
“Shit,” Hajime panted. “They know this area better than we do. They’re gonna try and cut us off.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to avoid them in a room like this,” Komaeda said.
“Yeah.” He checked his clip. Four rounds left. “Let’s just hope we don’t have to stand our ground.”
They were halfway across the warehouse when the door on the other side slammed open, spilling white light across the floor. Hajime ducked behind a stack of boxes and counted the flickers of movement—one, two, three, and a fourth blocking the exit. Shit.
The men spread out wordlessly, prowling down the aisles of shelves. Hajime’s gaze darted around. The boxes beside him were cardboard and would provide as much cover as wet paper. Most of the objects on the shelves were so covered in dust and grime it was impossible to tell what was stored in here.
The next aisle over had several boxes that looked to be made of metal. Appliances, maybe. He tapped Komaeda’s arm and the two of them ran at a half-crouch to the next row. The ducked down just as one of the men entered the aisle where they’d been hiding. Hajime held his breath and raised his gun. He’d only get one chance to surprise them.
The bullet tore through the man’s neck and he went down with a gurgle. The noise echoed through the warehouse like a clap of thunder and Hajime caught a flash of movement as another one of the men ducked behind cover. The whole cavernous space seemed to hold its breath as the noise of the gunshot faded. Blood roared in his ears. Now they were both the hunters and the hunted.
“We’ll be at a disadvantage if we stay together,” Komaeda said under his breath.
Hajime turned his head so he could hear him better with his good ear. “What?”
“I’m going to try and get the angle on one of them.”
“Wh—Komaeda,” he hissed, but he was already moving, scurrying down the aisle to duck behind a large, plastic-wrapped bundle. He bit back a curse. Komaeda was right—they’d be an easier target if they were right next to each other, but it still didn’t feel right letting him go off on his own.
Focus. He lifted his head so he could scan between the shelves. His best chance at protecting Komaeda was to finish this as quickly as possible.
He was beginning to feel too exposed here. He needed to keep moving, find better cover. He crept past a broken-down machine and behind a pile of metal scaffolding. The feeling of vulnerability trailed after him. He wouldn’t be able to hear anything sneaking up on his left. He should never have let Komaeda run off.
It was pure luck that he heard the sharp intake of breath from the next aisle over. Instinct had him ducking down as a bullet tore through the box next to him, sending shreds of packing foam floating through the air like a miniature snowfall. Hajime rolled away, rounded the corner of the shelf, and fired.
His bullet hit the man’s torso with a wet thump and he staggered. Hajime shot him again and he crumpled to the ground. He tensed as he heard another shot from another part of the warehouse, followed by the ping of a bullet ricocheting off metal and the thud of a body hitting the ground. His heart jumped into his throat and he ran as fast as he dared towards the sound.
Please, please, don’t let it be Komaeda…
He found the body first, a pool of blood haloing its head wound, and sagged with relief as he took in the man’s unfamiliar face. Komaeda appeared from behind a stack of crates a moment later, eyes wide and mouth set in a flat line.
Hajime beckoned for him to follow. There was only one assailant left, the man guarding door.
He peered around a support beam to get a better look and found the bright rectangle of the doorway unobstructed.
“Motherfuckers!”
Hajime fired at the voice, but his shot ripped through another cardboard box as the man ducked away. He dropped into a crouch, searching his pockets even though he knew for a fact that he was out of ammo.
Komaeda knelt beside him and held out his gun. “I still have a couple rounds left.”
A metal object hit the ground and rolled to a stop at the end of the aisle. Hajime took in the shape and horror turned his vision fuzzy for a moment before he forced his body to move.
He tackled Komaeda to the ground, shoving him behind a stack of boxes, and a split second later an explosion tore the air apart.