Kito let his fingers run down the wall. There was still a dark stain left by the Revenant blood that splattered against it thirty-eight years before. Seiko’s death had hit them all hard. It was sudden, brutal. While they had always been rivals of a sort, Kito had just been getting to really know Seiko again. Teammates for almost a year, before one of Xan’s officers had ripped him away from them.

“This is the street…” Katy said, catching up with Kito.

“It is,” Kito said absent-mindedly. He assumed she hadn’t found anything yet, though he had to snap out of it eventually. He had promised years ago that he would stop getting held up on the past. He felt Katy’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing him reassuringly.

“Come on,” Katy said softly, “We need to search.”

Kito nodded and shot her a smile, only realising after he’d done it that she couldn’t see it beneath his helmet. “I’m smiling, just so you know.”

“Good to know.” Katy chuckled, taking the lead in their search. She explained that she’d found signs of a struggle here and there, blood spatters and a couple of dead bodies. Partially eaten. Kito briefly wondered if they had maybe missed a few of the Revenants, but that was impossible. They would have surfaced within weeks, not decades. This was something different. That was when they saw the first of them.

A young woman, barely older than twenty when she had died. Her face was half-missing, guts hanging out. She shambled towards them, moaning softly as blood lazily dripped from all over. Zombies. The pair stopped and stared for a moment as she made her way slowly towards them. Kito couldn’t help but feel sick suddenly. He knew he should draw his sword, put the poor girl out of her misery, but he couldn’t bring himself to. They had saved this village from the undead hordes that attacked it almost four decades prior. The village being ravaged by zombies… Kito’s hand clenched in a tight fist. Katy was obviously thinking the same thing. Kito could see her jaw was clearly tightly clenched. She moved towards the girl, pity in her gaze as she got to the shambling corpse. Her blade flashed, the girl’s head flying through the air as Katy whipped her sword almost faster than Kito could see. Keeping it drawn, and not even bothering with her shield, she moved off down another street.

“Let’s split up,” She called, her voice hollow, “Meetup at the village entrance when we’ve taken care of all of them.”

“Understood,” Kito called back, drawing his katana and setting off at a run down the opposing alleyway.