The silence inside the truck was a physical weight, thick with the memory of the bridge. Of Hyejun moving through the dead, not like a man, but like a natural disaster.
Takashi stared out the window, his jaw clenched tight. Rei nervously checked her spear. Saeko watched Hyejun with dark fascination. Kohta was buried in his screens. And in the back, Saya and Asami sat in tense silence.
Saya's sharp eyes were analyzing everything, her mind already running tactical scenarios for the recovery. Asami clutched her medical pack, her face a mask of professional calm over raw fear.
The truck climbed higher into the cold, silent mountains.
"Komuro Onsen... should be just ahead," Kohta announced, his voice cutting through the tension. "Down a private drive."
Hyejun gave a single nod. His precognitive sense hummed, mapping the terrain. He felt a deep wrongness here—a watchful, predatory stillness.
They turned onto an overgrown gravel path. A shattered torii gate lay broken on the ground. Beyond it, the Komuro Onsen stood—a beautiful traditional inn now scarred by violence.
Its wooden walls were gouged, windows broken, and the garden a wreck. A child's red wagon lay overturned, a stark reminder of the lost world.
Takashi burst from the truck, his voice cracking with desperation. "Kaa-san!"
Silence.
Then, a soft tap... tap... tap from a fortified shed.
Hyejun raised a fist. The team froze. He could hear the shaky breaths from inside the shed and smell old blood and fear.
His instincts sensed a desperate, defensive energy hiding there and a dormant threat in the main building.
"We are not them," Hyejun stated, his voice clear and carrying. "We are here for survivors. For Ayame Komuro."
The shed door creaked open a sliver. An old man's terrified eye peered out.
The door opened wider, and a woman stepped out.
Ayame Komuro stood holding a blood-stained kama sickle. Her clothes were stained, her face etched with grief and fierce resolve.
Her eyes, warm and kind by nature, now held a terrifying fire. She had a womanly, nurturing body that now held a warrior's tension.
Her gaze swept over them, assessing, lingering on Hyejun's gore-stained batons, on her son's desperate face.
The recognition when she saw Takashi was agonizing relief mixed with fresh pain.
"Takashi," she breathed, her voice raw. The sickle didn't drop. "Who are you?" she demanded, her eyes locked on Hyejun.
"He's with us! He's our leader!" Takashi pleaded.
"A leader drenched in fresh blood," she countered, her voice low and dangerous. She took a step closer. "You move like no man I've ever seen. What are you?"
Hyejun met her stare calmly. "I am the one who will get your son to safety. And you, if you will come."
The standoff stretched. Finally, Ayame's shoulders slumped slightly. The sickle lowered but didn't drop. "The main building is not safe," she said flatly. "We barricaded theyakuza in there."
Yakuza. The word landed like a physical blow.
Takashi stared in horror. "What are you talking about?"
Ayame's story came out in a cold, dead monotone. A week into the collapse, armed yakuza had arrived. They took over and took their food and medicine.
They saw her as part of the spoils. Her voice didn't shake as she described how they'd broken old man Sato's arm for trying to protect her. How she'd dragged him to the shed.
"How... how are you alive?" Asami whispered, her medic's mind already assessing the hidden trauma.
Ayame's eyes went distant. "The dead came. Drawn by the noise. The yakuza went out to fight. They didn't understand."
A grim smile touched her lips. "I locked the door behind them. I listened to their screams. Then I took this from one of their cold hands." She hefted the sickle. "I have been protecting what's left ever since."
She gestured to the shed. Inside, huddled in the gloom, were old man Sato, his wife Chie, and two traumatized children.
Saya watched, her analytical mind processing the horrific data. This wasn't just a zombie story.
This was human evil, compounded by the apocalypse. Her plans would need to account for the worst of humanity, not just the undead.
"The girl, Alice Maresato," Hyejun said, cutting through the heavy silence.
Ayame's iron mask cracked, revealing a teacher's grief. "Alice-chan... She was in my class. A bright light." Her voice softened.
"She lived in the western-style house on the hill. But that area... it's where the yakuza came from. Where the fast dead are now." She looked at Hyejun, and the look was one of desperate understanding. "You will bring her back. You are the only one who can."
In that look, a pact was made in the shadow of the inn that held trapped human evil.
The mission was now stained with the knowledge of human cruelty. And as Ayame's fierce, wounded eyes held his, Hyejun felt a new, dangerous connection form—a savage recognition between two survivors who had learned to bite back.
Saya finally spoke, her voice clinical. "We need to evacuate these people immediately. The main building is a contained threat for now, but we can't risk it becoming active."
Her eyes met Hyejun's. "Alice is the priority, but this... this changes the operational landscape."
The mission had just become infinitely more complex, and darkness had settled deep into its bones.