Prologue

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Origins

The day it happened, Hinata was on a bus headed for Tokyo.

The sky was a clear cloudless blue speckled with white cotton ball clouds and the sun shone golden on the horizon. Outside the window, the countryside passed by in a blur. Japanese pines and cedars stood majestically in thick clusters of dark foliage, surrounded by patches of wildflowers, Nanohanas blossoming among the fields of white like pieces of gold betwixt pearls. Ravens flew among the branches of the trees like shadows, filling the air with their piercing cries.

The day it happened, there was no warning; no tingling sensation in the air that gave away the coming catastrophe.

Hinata was resting his head against the cool glass of the window and watched a family of red foxes dart between the flowers before they were sucked away again. He was bored. They'd been on the bus for three hours already and the din of chattering children and the faint hum of music from several pairs of headphones was beginning to drive him slightly mad, not to mention the muffled snoring of Izumi beside him. He wasn't sure how much farther they had to go, but he prayed it was less than an hour, because any longer than that and he might jump out the window.

He hadn't even wanted to go on this stupid school trip, anyway, but Natsu had been so excited, she'd made him go and promise to take pictures of Tokyo Tower and all the other scenery. He couldn't say no to her, especially when she used her trademarked Little Sister eyes and pouty lips. He was six years her senior, but sometimes Hinata thought Natsu was much more devious than he was. She'd have a future in politics if she kept it up.

"Hey, Shōyō," Kōji tapped on his shoulder from one seat behind. "You can switch places with me if you don't want to be drooled on anymore."

"Sure, thanks." Hinata carefully threw his bag over the seat and carefully maneuvered over Izumi and into the aisle. Kōji hopped over and dropped down in his place while Hinata stepped over a bag to reach his seat. "Kōji, make sure he doesn't choke on his own spit. His ghost would never let us hear the—" He was cut off mid-sentence as the bus jerked suddenly, nearly knocking him off his feet. Before he could recover, they swerved again and he fell onto the seat face-first.

Straightening himself up, Hinata stared out the window at countryside that was speeding by much faster than before. The bus turned sharply and plowed straight off the road and into the midst of the trees. Animals darted out of the way as they barreled between a line of cedars and over a shallow stream before plowing straight into a pine. Hinata was thrown back against the seat with enough force to knock the breath out of him, doubling over as the bus stilled and the screams tapered off into a shocked silence that left his ears ringing.

The teachers sitting at the front of the bus rushed to calm the students as Hinata stared out the window, feeling his hands shake as he placed them against the window. Outside, a bloody figure stumbled through the gap between the trees and towards the bus. Hinata pulled himself up farther and pushed the window down. "Oh my god..." He turned to shout up the aisle. "Hey, there's— there's somebody injured out there! I think we hit someone!"

"Everybody, stay calm!" The bus driver, who had luckily avoided any serious injuries, opened the doors and exited his seat. "Stay here and I'll go and see what happened. Everything will be alright."

As he left, Izumi, who had been roused from his sleep by the crash, clutched his arms to his chest and stared out the window worriedly. "What— What's happening? Did we crash?"

"I think that guy was on the road and the driver swerved to avoid him," Kōji supplied uncertainly. "I didn't really see, but don't worry. We'll be back on the road in no ti—"

A girl screamed, cutting him off, and others quickly joined her, pointing out the windows and crowding towards the right half of the bus. As Hinata followed their gazes, he covered his mouth to keep a panicked cry from escaping. The bloody man was eating their bus driver. There was no other way to explain it. He had his hands clamped to his shoulders and had torn out a huge chunk of flesh from his neck, sending blood splattering across the bus windows in a spray of red that blocked their view of the carnage.

As kids began to cry, the teachers at the front ran outside to help the driver, leaving them cowering inside alone. Izumi pulled his knees to his chest and buried his head between them, body shaking with sobs as Kōji tried in vain to comfort him. Hinata kept staring dumbly at the blood dripping slowly down the windows, feeling his heartbeat in his ears as his breath came in shallow gasps. This wasn't really happening, was it? Surely he was asleep in the seat next to Izumi and would wake up anytime to find that it had all been a dream, right?

But even as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to tune out the screaming and crying of his fellow students, Hinata knew that the tightness in his chest and the soreness of whiplash in his neck meant that this was all real. All he could do was keep breathing and staring blankly at the bus doors, waiting for the teachers to come back; say that this was all some kind of freak accident, that everything would be fine.

But the teachers never came back. Hinata stared straight ahead, the outside noise falling away as a bloody hand wrapped around the door, moving as if in slow motion. Hinata sat there in silence until a mangled body threw itself into the bus and lunged on a girl sitting in the first row of seats. The world seized back into motion and he hurled himself into the aisle, dragging Izumi and Kōji towards the back doors, followed by a heavy flow of other students. He pulled the door handle but it wouldn't budge an inch, no matter how much he pushed and tugged at it.

"Move!" Kōji shoved him out of the way and kicked the door with all his strength. Finally, the latch broke and the door swung open to allow the mass of bodies to spill out into the clearing. Not knowing what else to do, Hinata followed Kōji towards the road, dragging Izumi behind him. The other students screamed and cried behind them but Hinata kept running, feeling tears stream down his face as he was smacked in the face by foliage and scraped his arms against rough tree branches.

They were only a few feet from the road when Hinata's hand was jerked roughly back and he fell, slamming his shoulder against a rock as Izumi's hand slipped free of his grasp. Hinata stared at him through vision hazy with pain as the bus driver pulled him backward by the ankles.

"Izumi!" Kōji ran past Hinata and punched the driver in the face, but he didn't fall, grabbing Kōji's arm and biting into it like it was a slab of meat.

Kōji, Hinata, and Izumi all screamed at once, the sound mingling together to form a terrible shrieking noise, like nails against a chalkboard. Hinata covered his left ear, unable to move his right arm as he stared at his friends, unable to help them as the bus driver ripped open their necks like they were paper thin. He screamed endlessly into the blue sky until his lungs gave out, leaving him gasping and sobbing on the ground.

The bus driver moved past his friends' lifeless bodies and stumbled towards him, staring with lifeless, bloodshot eyes, pupils dilated to the point of disappearing. Hinata forced his body to move, cradling his injured arm to his chest as he scrambled backward, feet scrabbling for purchase on the dirt and smooth rocks covering the forest floor. The screams of his friends and classmates echoed in his head as his back hit a tree and his good hand searched the ground for some sort of weapon.

I can't die here. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't.

Fingers striking something hard, Hinata picked it up right as the man lunged for him. Swinging blindly and in a panic, he struck soft flesh and heard a loud crack. He kept swinging, pushing himself against the tree trunk like it was a life support system, screaming and crying, bashing a bus driver's skull in with a rock until he finally stopped gurgling and fell to the ground, unmoving.

His breath came in tight, short gasps and Hinata's trembling fingers let go of the slippery rock, fingers sore from holding it so tightly. He stared down at his hand, heartbeat hammering in his hears as he stared at the thick red-black blood staining it, seeping into every pore and line of his hand and underneath his fingernails. Shakily, he got to his feet, staring past his bloody hand at the bus, which was surrounded by the bodies of his classmates, some of which were beginning to rise and stumble around, groaning.

The panic filled him so fast it was like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. Hinata stumbled in his haste to turn around, sobbing out an apology to his friends as he tore through the forest and clawed his way out onto the empty road. As he stood in the center of the empty highway, off in the distance, smoke streamed into the sky like ink seeping through ocean water from the burning remains of Tokyo. The whole city was in flames, and even from miles away, Hinata could hear the screams.

The day it happened, Kageyama was lying on his stomach in the middle of a forest in Aomori.

"Why'd we have to go on this stupid trip now?" he asked his father irritably, staring out the opening in the hunting stand with his head resting on his arms. It was freezing, even through the three layers his mother had made him wear underneath the camouflage hunting jacket. The chill wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't already been lying there waiting for a deer to show up for three hours. It was beginning to get dark and he wanted nothing more than to go back home and eat some hot curry.

"It's hunting season, Tobio. Besides, don't you want to hang out with your old man?"

"We can hang out someplace normal, like in a park or somewhere that isn't freezing and full of bugs."

His father sighed and adjusted his Howa 89, offering Kageyama a reassuring pat on the back. "Okay, if we don't get something in the next half hour, I promise we'll go." He grinned and nudged him teasingly. "Come on, this isn't all bad. Hunting is exhilarating your first time."

"I'll try to be more excited," Kageyama said dryly. He stared back down at the ground with a sigh, wiggling his arms to try and get the feeling back into them. Despite his prejudices against the sport, it made his dad happy, so Kageyama hadn't been able to refuse when he'd asked him to go on this weekend-long trip. So far, they'd neither seen nor caught a single thing, and he was beginning to think his dad was lying to him about it being hunting season.

Before he could raise the claim, however, something caught his eyes out in the dark forest. It was too far away to see clearly, but it was definitely too big to be a bird or fox. It was moving slowly through the underbrush towards them and Kageyama felt a spark of excitement. He grabbed his own gun and set it up, aiming at the blurry shape. Maybe they'd catch something after all.

Right as his finger squeezed the trigger, his father shoved the gun to the side, shouting at him as the shot ricocheted off into the forest, missing its target. "You idiot, don't shoot! It's a person!" He tossed his gun aside and crawled across the floor towards the ladder leading out of the camp. Kageyama followed after him with rushed apologies, strapping his gun across his back as he dropped down to the mossy floor beside his father.

He raised his gloved hand to wave at the vaguely person-shaped figure, who had wandered closer but was still cast in shadows by the tree canopy. "Hey, sorry about that!" he called out, voice echoing through the forest eerily. "My son thought you were a deer! You're not hurt, are you? Though you shouldn't be wandering around in dark clothes out here," he muttered the last part to himself.

The stranger said nothing, the only sound in the darkness the rustling of the trees and chirp of crickets. A bad feeling began to develop in Kageyama's chest: Something was wrong. "Dad... maybe we should just leave him alone. Something about this feels weird... We should go back."

"No, son, we should make sure the person you almost shot is okay," he said through gritted teeth, nudging Kageyama forward with a stern look. "Go apologize to him before we get sued."

Kageyama allowed himself to be dragged forward, but the tight feeling didn't leave his chest. Something about this was off. They were in the middle of the woods, miles from civilization, and the sun was setting. Why would someone be out there wandering around alone? If he were a hunter, he would've known to wear something fluorescent so he didn't get mistaken for an animal. "Dad, I really think we should go back now."

"Nonsense. Apologize before I— Ach!" Without warning, the stranger lunged for them, latching onto Kageyama's dad's shoulder and biting deep into his shoulder. "What the hell— Tobio, get him off me!"

Going to his father's aid, Kageyama pulled the gun from his back and rammed it into the man's back. His jaw unclenched and Kageyama's dad stumbled back, clutching his wound tightly to stop the bleeding. He pulled Tobio back by the arm and roughly shoved him forward. "Run! Get back to the camp!"

They sprinted through the woods back towards the hunting stand, Kageyama's breath rattling in his chest as his gun thwacked against his leg with every step. What had just happened? What kind of freak wandered around at night biting people? His dad would probably need a tetanus shot after that nasty encounter. Who was getting sued now?

As they reached the ladder, Kageyama strung his rifle back over his shoulders and started climbing. He expected his father to be right behind him, but as he laid a hand against the rungs, he doubled over and let out a loud grunt of pain, falling to his knees in the dirt. Kageyama started to climb back down noticing his distress, but his father waved him on. "No! Go up there and shoot that guy. It's just this damn shoulder. I'll be fine."

He debated for a moment, but Kageyama knew he couldn't deny his dad's orders and pulled himself up into the stand, crawling across to his father's prepped sniper rifle and pulling the scope to his eye. It took him only a moment to set his sights on the stranger, who was lumbering towards their camp clumsily. He aimed the scope at his skull and released a tense breath, rolling his shoulders.

He'd never actually shot anything before. His dad had given him multiple lessons, and he'd fired on test dummies many times, but actually shooting something, let alone a person, was slightly terrifying. But it was this guy or them, so he released his hesitation in a single breath and squeezed the trigger. The man's lifeless body crumpled to the ground and he pulled his eye from the scope to crawl back to the ladder. "Dad! I shot him!"

His father responded only with a groan. He had collapsed on the ground, blood seeping from his shoulder to create a pool of muddy red in the dirt. Kageyama quickly climbed down and knelt beside him, placing his hands over the wound to staunch the bleeding. "Dad, w-what can I do? Should I call an ambulance?"

"No..." He gripped Kageyama's hands, dragging them away from his wound. "Son, listen... I think something's... happening to me. I know this is hard, but you need to... take that gun and— and shoot me."

"No, I— I can't do that!" Kageyama protested. "Why would you say that?!"

"Tobio... I can feel something changing in me." He gripped Kageyama's hand and looked into his eyes pleadingly. "Please, Tobio... I don't want to hurt you... You need to shoot me before I change."

"Change? What— what do you mean? I don't understand." He tried to move his hands back over the wound but his father wouldn't release him. "Please, let me help you!"

"The only way you can help me... is to shoot me." His eyes closed as he struggled to draw breath, fingers trembling over Kageyama's. "Hurry, Tobio..." He squeezed his hand. "Please... it's alright." He reached for the gun on Kageyama had tossed on the ground beside him and forced it into his hands, pressing the barrel against his forehead. "Do it, son. It's okay. It's okay."

Kageyama squeezed his eyes shut, feeling tears slide down his cheeks as his forefinger trembled against the trigger. How could he shoot his father? Why did he have to? He didn't understand any of this. He didn't have to die just because some weirdo bit him. Why was he acting like this? "I can't do it... I love you, I can't do it..."

"His father sighed, a smile flickering across his face as his hand covered the one Kageyama held against the gun's trigger. Tears clouded his eyes as he looked up at him, free hand cupping his face. "I'm sorry, Tobio... I love you. I love you so much." As he closed his eyes, his finger squeezed over Kageyama's and the gun fired.

His hand dropped to the ground, lifeless, and Kageyama hunched over his father's lifeless body, sobbing into his blood-stained shirt. It took him an hour to get rid of all his tears, and another for him to collect himself enough to climb back up the ladder and get their supplies. From the top of the stand, he could see the city line of Sendai in the distance.

Smoke rose above the horizon, a dark stain against the indigo sky. As Kageyama stood, his father's gun cold in his hands, he knew that nothing would ever be the same again.