"Raaagh!"
Two pitch-black figures suddenly burst out from both sides, splashing through the waist-deep water. Even in the dim underground light, Sosuke Kitahara instantly recognized their inhuman shrieks they were zombies.
He swiftly raised his handgun and fired twice. Bang! Bang! The bullets ripped through the two undead skulls with surgical precision.
Plop.
Sosuke pulled out his flashlight, clicked it on, and pushed deeper into the tunnel. The freezing water climbed up his legs and quickly engulfed his waist. The flashlight beam swept across a wall plastered with pop idol posters. Paths split left and right around it, both leading deeper underground.
Gunfire and shouting echoed from every direction. He couldn't tell which was which.
Sploosh!
A pale figure lunged from the shadows. Sosuke instinctively swung his rifle stock, slamming the attacker aside. As he aimed to finish it off, a scream pierced the dark.
The light revealed a bloodied Rin Ka soaked, terrified, and clutching a broken nose.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed? Charging at me like that? Where are Utaha and the others?!"
He grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the water, barking the question. Rin Ka sobbed, dazed.
"I... I don't know! There were so many zombies. We got separated... everyone ran... I couldn't "
"Fine! Get topside. Go wait in the bus!"
Sosuke shoved her toward the light of the exit and turned back, deeper into the chaos.
Zombies. Everywhere.
He fired and sliced through them, one after another, until his ammo ran dry. Back to the folding knife. Slashing, stabbing, weaving through wrecked cars and submerged hallways.
"Utaha! Yukino! Haruno! Mrs. Yuigahama!"
Standing atop a car, he shouted with everything he had. The echoes gave him nothing useful just misdirected gunshots and chaos.
"Sosuke!"
A voice cracked from the darkness relieved, urgent. Sosuke splashed toward it, rounded a wreck, and spotted Utaha clinging to her pistol, shivering in soaked clothes. Several unfamiliar flight attendants clung behind her. At the rear: Hirano, hefting a squad-level machine gun.
"Utaha, where are Yukino and the others?!"
"I don't know! We got separated when the tunnel flooded, but I heard the police officer shouting in Section A. They might be there!"
"Got it. Get to the surface. Bus is waiting. I'm going for them."
He clasped her shoulder and took off.
Section A.
Leaping across car rooftops, he soon spotted Hirano and his family pinned down by gunfire, covering each other. And there, among them Yukino Yukinoshita.
Elegant and fierce, soaked and swinging a machete with terrifying accuracy, she coordinated with Nanami Mami to hold the zombies back.
"Sosuke, I'm here!"
She cried out, and he leaped into the water, sloshing toward her. He tackled her into a tight hug and pressed a kiss against her trembling lips.
"Thought I lost you! Where's Haruno? Mrs. Yuigahama?!"
Yukino's joy faded. She shook her head.
"Gone. I don't know. We got split up. We have to find them!"
"Too dangerous. You'll slow me down. Hirano! Take her topside! I'll find the others."
"Let me go with you!"
"No! Move!"
He snatched Hirano's last grenade, kissed Yukino again, and vanished into the black water.
Underwater, the world was silence.
He clamped the flashlight between his teeth and swam under the vehicles, avoiding detection. His hearing let him track undead by sound alone. Bubbles occasionally drifted from his mouth as he swam.
Then a shadow.
Sosuke halted.
A monstrous figure, hunched like a gorilla, moved methodically. Even in water, it thudded like a tank.
Tyrant.
He slowly sank beneath a car, holding his breath, still as death. The creature walked right past him, footsteps echoing ominously.
Then crash! A car was tossed aside.
A scream.
A woman.
Sosuke barely had time to react before a body slammed into the car above him and dropped into the water next to him.
Shit.
The Tyrant pounced.
Sosuke flipped on the flashlight and hurled it away from himself with all his strength.
It worked.
The monster chased it like a hellhound. He dragged the girl into a nearby alcove.
She was unconscious. Broken arm. A rib protruding from her chest. The water around her turned crimson.
Then she stirred.
"S-save me..."
Her lips trembled. Her voice, soft and foreign clearly a tourist.
Sosuke's heart sank.
No hospital. No field medics. No tools. Just pain.
"I can't save you," he whispered. "But I can end the pain."
The woman looked into his eyes, then pointed to her forehead.
"Here... thank you..."
Bang.
Blood misted the walls. She slumped silently into the red water.
Sosuke gently shut her eyes. Then stood.
The Tyrant was gone. But Haruno and Mrs. Yuigahama were still unaccounted for.
"Dead or alive, I'll find them."
He dove again.
At the next intersection, sounds. Zombies pounding on a car.
Survivors.
He lit a lighter and flung it.
The sudden flame distracted the zombies. He burst from cover knife flashing.
Slash! Stab! Splat!
Bodies fell. He leapt across their corpses, reached the car, and pounded on the glass.
"Who's in there?! I'm Sosuke Kitahara!"