A Kingdom Lost (1/10)

[heleentje]

“I can’t say this is what I expected to come back to,” Asuka-senpai said. She was huddled next to Rei-chan, knees pulled up and duel disk held close. Rei-chan still looked pale and sickly under her many blankets, but at least she was awake, even though she kept shivering. “Chronos-sensei, how did this happen?”

 

“Ah, signora Asuka,” said Chronos-sensei. He sighed. “It was right after you and your friends left to find medicine for signora Rei. Those poor students, they went out looking for food and came back like this.”

 

‘This’ was an actual, real zombie invasion. Kenzan had barely been able to believe it. They’d gone out to find medicine for Rei-chan with Misawa-senpai’s help, and when they’d come back, only Chronos-sensei’s intervention had saved them from becoming zombie chow. Why’d it have to be zombies? Dinosaurs, now those he could deal with. Once you got around their sense of smell and hearing, they were pretty easy to escape. These guys just kept coming. Judai-no-aniki had been able to get Rei-chan out of the infirmary, but now they were locked up here, in the gym, with only 20 students left unzombiefied.

 

“It’s those dis-belts,” Marufuji-senpai said. He shook his right hand wearily. “We need to get them off. As long as we have them on, it’s only a matter of time before we become the same as them.”

 

“We’ll just beat them!” Judai-no-aniki said, but he lacked his usual cheerfulness. In fact, now that Kenzan thought about it, he’d been kind of withdrawn ever since they went looking for Cobra. But he’d definitely get over it, or he wouldn’t be Judai-no-aniki.

 

“If only we could get them off,” Asuka-senpai muttered. Kenzan studied the lock on his own dis-belt. It wouldn’t budge. He’d already tried smashing it against a wall. The bruises on his wrist still showed.

 

Misawa-senpai didn’t look away from the blackboard he’d appropriated an hour ago, but he did pause writing. “You cannot remove the dis-belts, correct?” he asked.

 

“Short of cutting off our hands?” Manjoume-senpai snorted. “Don’t think so. I like my hands where they are.”

 

“I smashed mine against a wall,” Kenzan said helpfully. Marufuji-senpai winced. “Didn’t work, though.”

 

Misawa-senpai frowned, deep in thought. “Unless we have power tools…”

 

Not even Kenzan could hide his flinch at that idea.

 

“No, if it is draining you of duel energy, there must be a receptor somewhere. Something that knows how much energy we have left.”

 

Judai-no-aniki perked up. “So if we destroy that receptor thing, the dis-belts will be useless!” He raised his duel disk. “We’ll go looking for it and take it out!”

 

Now they were talking! Kenzan got up. If they could destroy that thing, they’d be far closer to getting home.

 

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” said Misawa-senpai.

 

Judai-no-aniki frowned. “Well, then what should we do?”

 

“There are, by my count, at least 300 zombiefied students between us and the location of this —hypothetical—receptor. We do not know where it is or where to start looking. No, unless we know exactly where it is, a search for the receptor is a suicide mission.” Misawa-senpai continued. Asuka-senpai, Marufuji-senpai and Chronos-senpai all nodded. Kenzan got back down. When you put it that way…

 

“So then what?” Manjoume-senpai said. “We have to get rid of these stupid things.”

 

“If I can interrupt the signal… Maybe block it,” Misawa-senpai said. He wiped one corner of the blackboard clean and started scribbling again, numbers and letters that went right over Kenzan’s head. “If we can’t take them off, we can at least disable them. Can I see one?”

 

Marufuji-senpai moved over. Kenzan tapped his foot against the ground. How much longer until the gym would be overrun? And how much longer until they ran out of food? How were they going to make it out of here alive? Misawa-senpai had been looking for a way out ever since they’d returned with Rei-chan’s medicine, but they needed a massive power source to even contact their own world. Access to the power station had been completely cut off already.

 

The moaning outside increased. A few Ra Yellow students moved to the far corner of the gym. One Obelisk Blue girl with reddish-purple hair started sobbing quietly. Asuka-senpai bit her lip and got up to console the girl.

 

“Hey, is anyone in there? Let us in!”

 

Kenzan jumped up, as did Manjoume-senpai. There were still people outside who hadn’t been caught? Judai-no-aniki hurried over to the door.

 

“Please let us in! They’re coming!” a second person shouted, hitting the door. Manjoume-senpai’s eyes widened.

 

“Mototani, that you?” he shouted back. There was a second of silence on the other side of the door. The moaning increased.

 

“Manjoume-san? They’ll find us!”

 

“We’ve got to let them in!” Judai-no-aniki said, already moving the first table away. To Kenzan’s surprise, Manjoume-senpai did not protest, but only activated his duel disk. Kenzan took the second table from Judai-no-aniki and pushed it away, leaving them with enough room to open the door.

 

“They’re here!” A girl shouted. Judai-no-aniki pushed open a door and jumped aside when three people—two guys and a girl—stumbled in. He slammed the doors closed again, right in time to stop the first zombie students.

 

“Some help here!” he shouted. Kenzan grabbed both tables at once and shoved them back against the door. Judai-no-aniki leapt over both and came to a stop a few feet away from the door, his duel disk activated. But the tables held.

 

“Asuka-san?” the girl asked, trembling. Kenzan recognized her. She was one of Asuka-senpai’s friends—

 

“Junko! Oh my goodness!” Asuka-senpai ran to the girl and hugged her. “What happened? Are you okay? Where’s Momoe?”

 

“She…” Junko-senpai sobbed. “Asuka-san, I’m so sorry! She got cornered! We couldn’t save her!”

 

Asuka-senpai looked stricken. She closed her eyes briefly and swallowed. “It’s not your fault, Junko. I’m just glad to see you’re safe.”

 

The two guys who’d come with her were standing awkwardly near Manjoume-senpai. Kenzan knew he’d seen them somewhere before.

 

“Torimaki, Mototani,” said Manjoume-senpai. “How’d you get here?”

 

The guy with the blue hair, Torimaki apparently, was the one to reply: “We hid away in one of the empty classrooms, but then they found us and we had to run.”

 

“You got lucky,” Manjoume-senpai stated. He turned away. “Well, might as well stay here. Sit down somewhere and save your energy.”

 

“That’s the spirit!” Judai-no-aniki said. He deactivated his duel disk, now convinced no one was going to get in. “Hey Misawa, how’re you doing?”

 

“I can’t reprogram a system like this in just five minutes, Judai,” Misawa-senpai told him. He had attached Marufuji-senpai’s dis-belt to what looked like an ordinary PDA. “I don’t have my usual material here and whoever programmed the dis-belts clearly knew what they were doing.” He smiled when the PDA beeped. “But I’ll have you know that I’m getting there. Give me another hour and your dis-belts will be as harmless as a Watapon.”

 

Hah, awesome. Kenzan sank down against the wall. Asuka-senpai took Junko-senpai and the purple-haired girl from earlier to sit with Rei-chan, who had finally stopped shivering. There were only 24 students left and just one teacher, but if they could disable those dis-belts, they would at least stand a chance. They could go out and reactivate the power station, and maybe send a message back home.

 

Yeah, things were finally looking up.