Night Of The Living Dead

The Mission::

Kita awoke to the sound of rumbling thunder and howling wind. Hard and gritty dirt and rock dug into his back as he stared into a sky dark with storm cloud. A frosted breath fled from the boys lips as he sat himself up and examined his surroundings. About 50 meters in front of him was a massive expanse of corn, so tall and thick that the boy couldn't peer over or through it. He found himself sitting upon a gravel road, forking off into the direction of an old red barn to his right, and a decrepit and boarded up house far to his left. Behind him was a small town located some considerable distance away, seemingly where the gravel path emerged from. Though most concerning was the fact that off in the distance, the boy could hear the sound of screaming. Wretched shrieks of the damned poured over the top of the corn, chilling the boy more than this frigid air ever could. They were intense, though Kita reckoned that they were likely some distance away from their location.

"Where the hell am I?"

Five minutes ago the boy had been drifting off to sleep. Now he found himself in the middle of some strange and unknown territory with... someone else? Kita noticed another body laying next to himself. The boy quickly reached over and placed two fingers to their neck, breathing a sigh of relief when he found them still alive. Kita lightly began to slap at the figure's face in an attempt to awaken them from their rest.

"Hey! Hey! Wake up!"

Should the figure's eyes open, they would find a young boy of 15 years of age staring down at them. The figure was dressed rather plainly, possessing a gray kimono and Kirigakure underclothes and pants. Around their belt was a hitai-ate designating him as a member of the village of Kirigakure, and a katana sat strapped to his hip. His eyes were as stormy and gray as the clouds above them, and his face was pale and thin, a stark contrast to his short black hair and strong and angular features.

"You need to get up! Something's very wrong here!"

Word Count - 366

Takashi, on the other hand, found herself awoken to being lightly slapped across the cheek and did not have time to enter that state of contemplative horror that Kita had. Equal parts fury and confusion washed across her face as her brown eyes (though now clearly beginning to fade to white in many spots) opened and beheld a boy her age looming over her like some sort of physically violent henge. With a shriek that was also half-squeal she quickly rolled away from the boy and flipped herself up to an upright position, eyes wide and breathing rapid as little clouds of frosted air puffed in and out from her mouth rapidly. After her initial instincts told her that there was no immediate danger and her ears picked up his voice telling her that something was ‘wrong’ here she immediately erupted into a spout of profanities and similar invectives:

“What the fuck?! Did you actually just slap me awake? What kind of stupid fuck does that?! Do you have so little respect for your peers that you--” Takashi began, only to be interrupted by the strange pitch of a cresting moan that sounded very much like something with actually harmful intentions towards her and she clapped her left hand over her mouth while her right extended out (palm open and fingers perpendicular to the ground) as she actually took stock of her surroundings and began to register where she was, who this boy was, and what was happening to them. Her first thought was simple: unfamiliar territory. She’d gone to sleep in her bed and she’d woken up here--first she thought it might be some kind of lucid meditative dream brought on by the “herbal remedy” Yui had offered everyone before bed, but a lack of ability to change reality at a whim indicated to her that this was some kind of strange mental intrusion. She immediately performed genjutsu release to test that avenue and found herself still very much embarrassed by her behaviour of the apparently very real boy from her village that she’d just accosted.

“I-I’m sorry! I probably should think before I act, but fuck… Okay, Takashi, just breathe.” she blurted out, cheeks flushed red and lips pursed together tightly as she inhaled deeply through her nose. As she exhaled she felt some of the earlier tension leave her and continued for another few cycles until her rapidly beating heart had stilled and she could think clearly again.

“Yuganori Takashi of Kirigakure. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you but we appear to be in some kind of horrific nightmare scene and whatever it was that made those sounds is clearly not going to offer us a chat over a pot of tea--do you have any more ideas than I do about what’s going on here?”

Takashi took the time she was speaking to survey her surroundings, noticing the fields of corn and the abandoned buildings and making a little list in her head of places that they could hide out, spots that might be advantageous for an ambush, and places that might simply be out of reach of potential enemies. Ultimately, however, she knew that none of this initial planning in her mind actually mattered without information about what, precisely, was going on. As she considered these things and waited for Kita’s reply she nervously fiddled with her yukata, a cornflower blue garment with whorls of white and grey seamlessly melded into it so as to look like little whirlpools that connected to one another in a seemingly random pattern across the entire garment, and after a few seconds of that she buried her hands in the many folds of her luxurious scarf to keep them a little warmer than they currently were.

Spoiler:

The figure did not respond well to Kita's attempt to wake the girl. She sprang into action and rolled violently away from Kita, causing him to raise his hands in surrender, a gesture of good will on his behalf. Once she had seemingly calmed down a little bit she immediately launched into a harsh diatribe against the boy. Anger began to well in Kita's stomach as a grimace twisted across his face, though he kept it contained where it was. She likely wasn't aware of what was going on, same as Kita. Though rational thinking did little to quell Kita's burgeoning indignation over her insults.

She took a little more time to calm down, time in which Kita brought himself into a standing position. The moans from the field began to grow louder and louder each passing second, and rustling was beginning to be heard from the very edges of the corn field. Whatever was coming, they likely didn't have long before it arrived. The stranger that Kita had awoken introduced herself at that time, calling herself Yuganori Takashi. She also appeared to be from the village hidden in the mist, a fact that brought Kita some small comfort. At least he had allies in this strange dream. Though unfortunately Kita had no more of an idea about where they were than this girl here. Kita shook his head.

"Unfortunately I don't know anything more than you do. I woke up on the ground about a minute before I woke you up. I have no idea where we are or how we got here."

Kita scratched the back of his head. He hadn't remembered ticking anyone off enough to warrant payback, and he certainly hadn't met this individual in the past. Was this a random attack on the shinobi of Kirigakure? If so, why target Kita? He couldn't speak to this other individual's level of skill, but Kita was only a mere Genin, nobody important or special enough to target. He'd have time to figure it out later. For now they needed to get to safety, and hopefully shelter. Kita turned back to the girl and walked over, extending a hand to drag her to her feet.

"I'm Kita Hajime, also of Kirigakure. Look, I don't know much, but that moaning coming from the corn fields doesn't sound to friendly. I think our first priority should be to-"

The boy was quickly interrupted by the sound of something barreling out of the corn fields. To Kita's surprise it seemed to be a farmer who stopped a few feet outside of the edges of the field. Admittedly one who seemed panicked or terrified, but a farmer nonetheless. He held a bloodied pitchfork in both hands, with knuckles gripped so tightly around it that they had turned white. He wore a straw hat and a flannel shirt, as well as a pair of overalls. He quickly turned to the two shinobi and shouted out a warning.

"Run away! There's monsters in there!"

Immediately after the man gave his frenzied warning, said monsters emerged immediately behind him. He had barely enough time to give a panicked shriek before they lunged at him, biting into his face and neck and bringing the poor man to the ground. The monsters seemed humanoid enough, though their flesh looked rotten and withered, bone peeked through certain parts of their flesh. Their clothes looked old, worn, and withered, possessing a fashion style that far predated Kita's time. Dirt and dried blood seemed to cake their frame, and groans and rasps escaped from their decayed mouths. And more of them seemed to be appearing. They came bursting from the fields, running towards the two shinobi with snarls and growls, fully intent on devouring the two of them alive.

Kita's eyes widened in surprise and he reached for his katana. With a clean stroke through the air Kita unleashed a massive wave of chakra at the encroaching creatures, which they seemed to mindlessly run into, bisecting them in half. Yet that didn't stop them. More and more emerged, practically an army of these mindless beasts, each and every one of them hungry for flesh. Kita quickly turned to Takashi and yelled a single word before turning to flee for the town.

"Run!"

Word Count - 712

Total Word Count - 1078

Takashi took Kita’s hand and hoisted herself up with a grateful nod of thanks, quickly clapping together a few handseals as she stood up to activate Weft Manipulation. White cords of chakra flowed through her scarf, and then the telltale blue of a more traditional chakra flow wove itself through the individual fibres and concentrated itself on the edges of the thing. It suddenly rose up as if of its own accord and with a quick burst of movement Takashi stepped a few metres back in order to better survey what precisely was happening. The noises were only getting louder and that could only mean that the sources were getting closer--and it took only a brief moment more before a bedraggled farmer wearing clothes that Takashi audibly gasped at the sight of (and was then immediately glad of her own vastly superior clothing) appeared from the tall stalks of corn in the near distance.

Takashi took a brief step forward, clearly intending to help the man, but her movement was cut vastly short by the arrival of several undead creatures mobbing and sinking their rotten teeth into his flesh. She watched Kita perform a quick technique--something she didn’t recognise--and the zombies approaching them getting cleaved in twain by its force. She turned to him, raising an eyebrow briefly in a motion universally recognised as meaning ‘Huh, impressive,’ before turning on her heel and running as quickly as she could towards the nearby fork in the road. She was faced with a fairly simple choice at this juncture: the town or the barn. Kita seemed intent on running towards the town so she followed suit, thinking that perhaps the barn would’ve been her choice--but she knew that allies were far more important than anything else in survival situations.

She took a sharp turn and barrelled down the road, slightly slower than her newfound ally, scarf fluttering behind her as it sailed through the air. By the time she’d gotten to the town she could already hear the moans of zombies echoing from the dilapidated structures and crumbling tenements that surrounded them, and she scanned the village briefly for the tallest building there was. It took only a scant second before she settled on a direction, heading north towards what looked to be a water tower or perhaps a grain silo, and she ran forwards towards it with abandon. From her side, in a house so structurally unsound only sheer luck seemed to be keeping it upright, four zombies rushed from the door with a surprising amount of speed. The scarf whipped itself round of its own accord, the very tip of the ridiculously long fabric slicing clean through the first of the zombies before reorienting itself to bifurcate another. With another series of movements she whipped the scarf downwards and a loud BARK! erupted from it, disintegrating the remaining two as they slammed backwards into the house and it began to crumble around them.

“We should get up high, they likely can’t climb enough to reach us and we have the reach to keep them off. Let’s go!”

Word Count:

After Takashi rose to her feet she weaved some set of hand seals Kita didn't recognize, and the scarf that adorned her neck seemed to come alive. Kita silently nodded in approval to himself, grateful that his ally had a couple of useful tricks up her sleeve. If he had to do this alone and without assistance, he likely would be toast within the first few minutes.

It was soon after that moment that the farmer burst forth from the fields of corn and was promptly devoured, and both shinobi ended up running towards the town off in the distance. Thankfully they were both fast shinobi, and Kita didn't need to slow down too much to keep pace with his ally. Something he was especially grateful for as he took a look back at the creatures escaping from the corn fields. They seemed incredibly quick for creatures with rotten limbs and seemingly uncoordinated movements, being far faster than any normal human. Not quite as fast as the two fleeing ninja, though fast enough to run down individuals slightly slower than themselves. That poor farmer had never stood a chance. Still, they had little time to mourn his loss if they wanted to live themselves.

As the town got ever closer to them, it began to become clear just how antiquated this town had become. Most of the buildings that were standing were horribly dirty and clearly abandoned, the windows being boarded up and the paint that adorned their once pristine outer walls had long since begun peeling away. Though even if they hadn't been sealed up the way they were, Kita still wouldn't want to run the risk of going inside. Even from the distance they were at, moans and groans were clearly audible from the insides of the many buildings that lined the sides of the road, more than likely more of the type of creatures escaping from the corn field. The walls didn't seem too strong either, with most of the wood composing them heavily rotted due to their age and perpetual neglect and disrepair. If they were hoping to bunker down, none of these would be a good idea for them to take.

"Damn, there's no good places to hide! Any plans? Any ideas where we should go next?"

With a sidewards glance towards his companion Kita took note that she seemed to have selected a direction, nodding silently to himself and slowing just a bit to get behind her. Clearly she had a plan, which was much more than Kita could say he had. They weren't out of the woods yet though. As they finally arrived in the ancient looking town, rotted and skeletal hands seemed to be prying themselves free of the ground, reaching to the heavens in hopes of grabbing a wayward ankle of some kind or another. Worse yet, four of those accursed beasts seemed to burst forth from a nearby house to Takashi's side. With blinding speed and deadly accuracy Takashi's scarf roared to life once again, quickly vivisecting two of the creatures and slamming the others back into the house they came from with enough force to make the entire structure collapse on top of them. Quite impressive, enough to where Kita's head swiveled back as he ran to catch a few more glimpses of Takashi's display of prowess. Unfortunately his lack of attention was enough to get careless. A hand erupted from the ground and grabbed hold of the boy's ankle, holding him in place for a moment. A mere second later a head erupted from the ground next to it as half of the body of one of those things dragged itself partially out. With a swift chomp it bit into Kita's calf, causing boiling water to leak from the wound onto the creature's face, singing it deeply.

Kita gave a pained grunt as he drove his katana into the creature's head, causing it to give a few final death twitches before its movements ceased. Kita quickly withdrew the katana and continued running after Takashi. The wound hurt, but ultimately it was nothing particularly concerning. It didn't inhibit the boy's movements, and with adrenaline coursing through his body he could easily power through whatever discomfort it brought him. Takashi called out that they should head for high ground, a sentiment that Kita agreed heavily with as he followed her lead through the town. More and more of those wretched things seemed to be appearing around them, whether they be emerging from nearby buildings or from the very ground beneath the two shinobi's feet.

"There's no end to them!"

Kita was swinging his katana wildly as he ran behind Takashi, cleaving through and of those things whenever they got too close. Yet no matter how many he cut through, two more seemed to pop back up. His hands were getting shaky, and his katana was stained with an immeasurable amount of blood. It didn't help matters that they seemed more interested in Kita than in Takashi. Could they somehow sense that he was wounded? He'd say they could probably smell his blood if there were any left in his body. Regardless, there were simply too many for even a shinobi to handle flawlessly, especially when he had to worry about hands erupting from the ground next to his feet. Some of them got through his defenses and close enough to attack. One of them gave him a particularly nasty swipe across his back, ripping through his clothing and spilling boiling water to the gravel pavement below. Another almost got Kita's face, though he blocked it by sacrificing his left forearm for the creature to bite instead, a blow that Kita immediately made the creature pay for by impaling it through the stomach with his katana, sending it stumbling back to the ground. Yet another managed to get a bite on the boy's right shoulder, an attack which prompted Kita to reach into his weapon's pouch and drive a kunai into its eye.

By the time they arrived at the base of the old grain silo, Kita was looking far worse for wear. Channeling chakra to his feet, Kita took a mighty leap towards the top of the silo. He came just short of the top, though as his feet collided with the side of this steel structure they stuck, and the boy was able to scrabble quickly to the top of the thing. With heaving breaths he looked over the side of the thing, breathing with relief as the pulsing crowd of creatures below proved unable to climb the thing, only amassing along the side and leaving the two safe. For now.

By this point Kita both looked and felt exhausted. Sick too if he was entirely honest. Weirdly hungry as well. If he had to take a guess it would likely be a result of those bites he had suffered. He didn't realize just how bad they were, but he was likely suffering blood loss. Or whatever it was that he experienced now. Or at least that's what he thought and hoped. With tired eyes Kita turned to Takashi if she had gotten atop the silo with him, and gave both a weary grin and a feeble thumbs up.

"G-Great job! Those were some fine skills you showed off..."

His eyes began fluttering, and he collapsed with his chest to the sky on top of the grain silo.

"I-I'm just going to rest here for a bit... sleep off those bites of mine..."

Kita's eyes closed weakly. Though when he opened them again, he was laying safely within his bed at home. A confused look flashed across his youthful features as he puzzled the meaning of this. Was he not just injured atop a grain silo a few moments ago? No, that was a dream, wasn't it? Now that he thought of it, Kita couldn't even remember what the dream was about. With groggy movements the boy made his way over to the blinds of his apartment, bringing them open to reveal the sun just beginning to crest over the horizon, something that made Kita shield his eyes from the bright light with his hand. No bite marks visible on him. Or wounds of any kind for that matter. Not that he remembered being injured lately... The boy shrugged. Seemed as though he was only a few mere moments from daybreak anywho. Why not get ready for the day now? So with that the boy got ready for another day of shinobi work, completely forgetting about the dream he had just experienced, and the individual he had met within it.

Word Count - 1441

Total Word Count - 2519

Exit Claims:

Approved