Meanwhile, a distance away from the halted bus.
Roaring along the asphalt of the road, Takashi and Rei raced - the young man at the wheel while she held him close around his waist - to make it across Tokonosu Bridge to meet with their friends as promised.
A military jet came buzzing and whirring through the air at a low altitude, zooming past them as if it had not seen them; as if they were not people in desperate need of saving.
The bike came to a halt as they were left in the wakes of it's wind.
"Why do keep talking as if it's all hopeless?!" Rei complained as she slightly nudged his back.
"They don't have time for us," Takashi said grimly, "And I doubt they ever really will."
"Then what do we do?"
"Everything we can to survive," He said through uncertainty, "That's all we can do."
Rei grimaced slightly, her visage tainted with resignation.
"You always act like this," She muttered sourly, "Whenever anything important happens, you've always been such a downer...even in kindergarten."
Takashi jerked to glare back at her and complained, "What does that have anything to do with what's happening now?!"
She nudged his back, huffing slightly as she retorted, "Nothing specifically...it's just how you are!"
Takashi grumbled to himself, looking away with a huff, then his attentions were caught by the worrisomely low fuel guage.
"We need a gas station," He said, "There's one a couple blocks ahead."
Then the bike roared back to life and they navigated their way through the city.
Tokonosu - or at least the husk of what it once was sprawled before them, having rapidly decayed. Broken buildings lined the streets like jagged teeth, their windows shattered, their walls crumbling.
The motorbike's growl echoed through the empty streets, weaving past overturned cars, debris, and zombie corpses left to rot.
The asphalt crunched under the tires as they swerved to avoid deep cracks in the pavement. The sun cast a its hot yellow haze over the grimly silent city, failing to warm the eerie chill that clung to everything. Storefronts lay gutted, their shelves stripped, while a bus lay overturned, its blood-smeared windows hiding bodies left to decay.
Takashi, through an unpleasing exchange with Rei, had deduced that the reason the streets were so quiet was because all the zombies that were still 'alive', had followed and chased after everyone that managed to escape.
"Look!" Rei's hand pointed forward, "At the intersection!"
As they approached, a destroyed police car came into sight, crumpled in on its side, its blue paint streaked with blood. A large truck had crashed into it's back, destroying it for the most part.
They stopped, the bike's engine falling silent.
"What are you doing?!" Takashi questioned as Rei hopped off the back.
"We might be able to find something useful in there," She mentioned, glancing back at him, "Don't just sit there! You help too!"
Beyond a slightly nervous look, he got off the bike, leaving it to lean on its support as they rummaged through the wrecks of the police car, or rather, as Rei rummaged through the wreck, digging her hands through its ruins while he stood watch.
She came out having rertreived two expandable police batons and a gun - a Ruger Security-Six revolver - that she now reached towards him.
"Do you know how to use it?" She asked as he took it.
Slightly frowing at the weight of it's metal, he faintly glared at it.
"If it's like TV, I should be fine if I'm not trying to hit anything far," He said heavily.
She glanced at the stern of his gaze with a nervous concern, "What's wrong?" Asked Rei.
"The weight of it..." He murmured, "It's all too real."
"Well, duh. It's a real gun," She faintly sighed, reaching her hand out again - it was stained with the blood of the policemen - and said, "Here. The other policeman's gun was broken but his bullets seem fine,"
She was handing him and extra five rounds.
Takashi gave her a long, almost appreciative glance laced with nervousness, "You really...know a lot,"
"My dad taught me," She said faintly with a slightly overcast expression as she found a rag in the police car to wipe her hands with, "Besides, we can't let a little blood stop us from getting the things we need,"
They then got back on their bike, heading to the nearby gas station.
"They say places like this have enough gas to fill up a thousand tanks," Takashi muttered as they hopped off the bike right beside the terminal.
He then grumbled to himself, inspecting it. His arm raised to scratch the back of his head, almost mumbling out an explitive.
"Uh...It's self-service... and I bought juice earlier so all I have is 30 Yen," He said as he gave her a helpless glance.
Her look faded into obscure uncertainty and helplessness.
"...You're so stupid," She muttered almost jokingly.
Yet he whirred back on his pivot, growling back with an accusing finger stabbed her way.
"Well excuse me!" Complained Takashi, "I'm sorry I can't be Hisashi!"
"Where did that come from!?" She snarled, as the memory of her dead - zombified - boyfriend haunted, "When did I compare you to Hisashi?!"
"If you think I'm stupid, then there must be someone you think is better!" He retorted, "And who else could it be but Hisashi! Your oh-so spectacular boyfriend?!"
Rei grind her teeth, glowering her gaze away from him.
"You really are...stupid," She sneered.
Hisashi opened his palm towards her then.
"..."
"What...?"
"Money," He said, "Lets use your money to fill it up,"
She almost retreated, her visage overcasting in reluctance as she failed to meet his gaze.
"I left my wallet in my bag..." She murmured meekly.
"..."
Grabbing his bat, Takashi turned towards the gas-stations convenience store. He glanced back to her, faintly annoyed and helpless.
"You're such a hypocrite," He complained, "Don't treat me like an idiot when you're no better."
"Wait here. Scream if anything happens," He left behind those words, making his way into the convenience store.
Entering, he headed straight for the cash register, making a failed attempt at opening it conventionally. When he grumbled to himself, he thought, 'Whatever, I've always wanted to do this.'
He raised his bat high over hiss head and unconsciously, strangely even, an excited grin embellished itself on his visage.
Meanwhile, Rei stepped back leaning against their bike as she sighed to herself with a faintly forlorn and reminiscent look. Then from within the convenience store, a thunderous crash resounded, jolting her.
"And nobody's there to stop him from doing whatever he wants..."
She leaned over the bike again, helplessness mangled with the dourness of shame blemishing her countenance as she continued:
"But I'm not one to talk... I gave up on him," She thought as a weak smile haunted her, remembering her foul words to him in grief, and her desperation as she clung to him when he was about to leave her for such rashness.
'I don't have any right to blame him,' She thought as her shoulders fell slightly through bitter reminiscence of her relationship with Hisashi and it's consequence; her shunning of him.
As Takashi grabbed all the cash notes of Yen from the ruined register, finding a rather envious amount, he thought to himself, 'This should last us a while.'
"Kyaaaahh!!!"
Then, he jerked and jolted his shocked attention out of the store. Rei's screech demanding the world of his attention.
With the cash stuffed into his pocket and his bat in hand, he raced, "Rei!"
He found her within the clutch of a large, bulky man swaggered in bloodstained clothing, looming over her behind her back; within his torturing grasp was Rei's breast, leaving her whimpering and lurching.
"Nice girlfriend you've got here, dude," The man grinned lasciviously, slobbering through his braced teeth as the fat of his fingers dug into her boob.
A pleading desperation scarred her visage as she sobbed, "T-Takashi..."
"Ahhh, that squeal. That voice, i'm hard already!" He frothed, "You've got to have fucked her, right?! I bet you get some pussy from this bitch every day, huh?!"
He almost amusedly caught Takashi's hesitation as the boy grimaced and glared at him, rooted in his stop over two dozen steps away.
He chuckled to himself, "You've never fucked her?! You're a fucking retard, huh?! Hahaha!"
Takashi brandished and clutched his bat, taking a stomp forward yet was halted as the knife - now stabbing in his direction - in the bulky man's hand froze him.
"Now!" He growled. "You just broke open the cash register, fill the bike up before I slice both ya'll up!"
Takashi grate his teeth through almost gum-damaging force. Then he tossed his bat away, clattering it over the pavement as he walked towards the bike.
Through unwilling glares, Takashi put the cash into the gas terminal, proceeding to fill it up with a quivering clasp over its pipe. His gaze flickered constantly between the pained and whimpering Rei and the attentive glare of her assailant.
"Come on man..." His words shook - they hardly stood a few meters away from each other. "Just let her go...we're out looking for our families.
"I bust the heads of all my family members! They all turned right in front of my eyes! What makes you think yours are any better, pussy!?" He snapped.
"..." Takashi simply glared slightly, clenching his teeth.
"It's full..." He screwed the tank shut with those cautious words.
"Please...let her go now. Just take the bike." Takashi pleaded as he stepped aroundd the bike, reaching a requesting, cautious hand out while his other hovered by his front as if protecting himself from a possible knife lunge.
"Get the fuck outta here!"
"Come on man...please," Takashi stepped closes uneasily, hardly a few steps away.
The man's arm raised in a threatening swing, Rei whimpered at his unconsciouly more visious clutch on her breast, her knees almost buckling under her yet she remained held up by him as he roared, "I'll fucking stab you kid! Shut your mouth and go!"
Therein, whithin the grathing throes of the man's sloberring hollers, the wind whirred, reluctantly giving way to Takashi's lunging figure, the hand that had been guarding his body slithering under his jacket. The man roared at his lunge, making the motion to swing his knife to intercept him, yet it was halted by the press of cold metal against his descending shoulder.
Takashi glared visciously up at him, his eyes overcast with the eerie shadow of his hair; the rattle of a hammer cocked.
"I've never shot a gun before, but I won't miss point blank," His voice came eerily sharply.
The man's visage froze, shattering a moment later into a nervous grimace.
"You'll blow this whole place up if you shoot," The gruff of his voice quivered.
Takashi's glare intensified, his voice cutting as he growled, "I'd rather that than have my girl taken from me,"
Without any further forewarning or negotiation, the peal of a gunshot thrashed through the air of the gas station thereafter.