Dead in the Water, a Highschool of the Dead Lemon Fanfiction by ClockMaker411

Standard Disclaimer: Highschool of the Dead and its characters are not my property. I do not own, nor am I affiliated with the series in any way, shape or form. The following work is derivative, non-commercial fiction. If you're offended by explicit, mature themes, then read on and let me try to change your mind. Lemons to follow in later chapters; rating will be updated accordingly once 18+ material is added.

Author's Note: As the HotD manga has been on hiatus for way too long, I thought I'd try my hand at a continuation. This story follows the manga plotline, so if you've only watched the anime I'd suggest reading that first. It picks up after the gang departs from the police station, but my version of events at the station are somewhat different from what transpired in canon.

Timeline/Continuity Note: If you've only seen the anime, you should pick up the manga starting at Act 18, the beginning of the mall arc. The manga and anime are basically identical until Episode 8/Act 9, after which the primarily divergence is that in the manga, the entire group is rescued by Saya's mom, rather than Saeko and Takashi splitting off and joining a day after. In the manga, the arc between Saeko/Takashi and their night in the temple shrine happens after the group leaves Saya's mansion (in the 8-wheeler ATV, not the Humvee, the latter of which having been fried by the EMP). The impetus behind their separation is essentially the same as in the anime - they use the ATV to lure away and distract 'them', allowing the rest of the group to pass unmolested to their next rendevous point - the mall. Presumably this arc was advanced in the anime to allow enough material to fill out 12 episodes while presenting the finale as the escape from the Takagi estate.

Chapter 1

Takashi Komuro scrubbed at his nose as he closed the door to the cramped, narrow rest room at the back of the ransacked convenience store. The toilet had been none too clean even before the Outbreak had thrown the civilized world into violent upheaval, and the last few days of standing water had done nothing to improve its odor. But he supposed he should consider himself lucky – at least the sewer mains had not backed up, and the toilet was still flushable, albeit only with the liberal addition of a few bottles' worth of mineral water.

By habit, Takashi moved to wipe off his hands on his clothes, but then thought better of it. The dark red shirt he wore beneath his uniform was grimy with sweat and mottled by reddish brown spots that didn't bear thinking about. The uniform had been likewise spattered in congealed blood and dead tissue, unavoidable when dispatching "them", even if the stains were harder to pick out against the tunic's solid black. Rei Miyamoto solved the problem when she wordlessly handed him a few white napkins, which he accepted with a word of thanks and used to dry off his hands.

As he slipped on a pair of black, fingerless gloves, Takashi studied Rei apprehensively, the concern for her clear in his dark eyes. She was leaning back against a small counter supporting a microwave and hot water station, both appliances now rendered useless in the wake of the electromagnetic pulse. The green-accented white blouse of her sailor uniform was likewise spotted with red, though her plaid green short skirt was in slightly better shape. She stood very still, her gaze downcast and distant, arms crossed beneath her breasts as though hugging herself. Her M1A1 battle rifle and his newly acquired Benelli shotgun were propped up against the counter to one side.

"You okay?" Takashi asked quietly.

She raised her head and stared at him, her eyes red-rimmed. "I–, I don't know, Takashi. I don't think I am. There was just so much blood..." She bit her lip, turning her face aside and shivering.

Takashi laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. "We don't know for sure that it was his, Rei. Your dad might still be out there, looking for you."

"Do you really believe that?" Her words were bitter. Takashi let his hand drop, softening his tone a bit when he replied.

"Yeah, I do. If he became one of 'them', he would've still been in the station, right? But we cleared the whole building and didn't find him."

"Then how do you explain what we saw? There was blood all over the floor, and there were bloody hand prints on his desk..." She shut her eyes tightly, as if to will away the memory of the gruesome scene.

"Maybe he was injured, but I doubt it. He couldn't have survived losing that much blood, and if that happened, we would've found his body. But I don't think he was bitten either, or he wouldn't have left along with everyone else. I think what happened was that 'they' attacked someone who had gotten into the office, maybe after everyone else had already gone. Then the victim became one of 'them' – maybe the one we killed who'd had its throat torn out. It could've just been coincidence that it happened where it did."

"That's a lot of maybes."

"I guess. But there's another reason why I think he's still alive." She glanced up at him, her red-brown eyes gleaming with a faint spark of hope. "Did your dad keep a picture of you at his desk? In a white frame?"

Rei blinked. "Yeah, of me and my mom. Why?"

Takashi's expression widened into a smile. "You must have overlooked it, since you were kind of upset..." Takashi paused, trying to hide a grimace. Upset had been an understatement – Rei had nearly broken down when they had discovered what had been waiting in the office of the Public Safety Division. Shizuka, Alice, and Kohta had needed to stay with her while Takashi, Saeko, and Saya searched for clues while clearing the rest of the building. "Anyway, I found the frame. And just the frame. The picture was gone, Rei."

As she realized the implication, a wide smile of joy and relief blossomed onto Rei's features, and she exclaimed, "He took it with him! He really might be alive! She launched herself forward and flung her arms around Takashi, crushing him in a fierce hug. "Oh, Takashi," she whispered, "thank you. Thank you." Her breath was warm and ticklish, and her body, an alluring combination of lean muscle and soft curves, melted satisfyingly against the line of his own.

Takashi tried to control his breathing, a task made difficult both by the force of the embrace, and by the growing, insistent desire kindled inside him at her closeness. "We shouldn't lose hope, Rei," he murmured, enfolding her lightly in his arms and stroking her back reassuringly. "God knows we've lost enough already."

But hope was a rather frail thing given the present situation, and although he tried to put on a brave face for Rei and the rest of the group, Takashi had to admit, to himself at least, that he had little left of it within him. What they had found at the police station – or rather, what they had failed to find – had done much to extinguish the few hopes he had clung to ever since the Outbreak had begun. The computers and the communications network had been blacked out, either by the loss of electricity or the EMP. Further, there had been no message, hasty scrawl or otherwise, to suggest any official plan to evacuate the city. That especially had troubled him – if order had broken down so much as to preclude establishing centers for evacuation, then if their search of their homes and his mother's school didn't pan out, then chances of finding their parents in the whole of Tokonosu City were slim to none. Adding to that, the EMP had essentially crippled nearly every means of rapid transportation by vehicle, for either search or escape. The same had also highly reduced the likelihood of outside help, dependent upon the radius of the blast and severity of the Outbreak elsewhere. And lastly, if help from the outside were to come, with no idea where survivors were congregating it would only be by offhand chance that their group might be in the right place to receive it. The wisest course would be to assume that they were, for all intents and purposes, on their own.

Yet for better or for worse, Takashi had been selected as the leader of their band of companions. Though he still sometimes found it odd to be in a position of leadership, he knew that one thing a leader did was to shoulder the burdens of the group, so that others would remain focused and steadfast. And so he would worry about how they were trapped in a labyrinth where danger awaited at every turn, in which one wrong choice or one single misstep might lead to death, or worse. About how what would have previously been a five minute car ride from the store to Rei's house would now be a trek of hours, with adrenaline pumping and tension high, further fraying the weave of the group's mental integrity. He would worry about Kohta snapping again, about Saeko losing herself in her blood lust, about Alice innocently if inadvertently putting herself or the group in danger. And he would worry for the girl in his arms, who was close to collapsing beneath the strain of having lost her boyfriend, and potentially her parents, too.

After a few more seconds of standing there together, Rei loosened her hold around Takashi and took a half step back, her fingers resting lightly on his chest. "Sorry," she said, glancing timidly up at him through thick, dark lashes.

He gave her a slight smile, and let his hands slip to her shoulders again. "It's all right. Feeling better?"

"Yeah, much. Thanks to you." Rei bit her lip, as if mulling something over, then her hands tightened to grip the front of his uniform as she rose on tip toe and brushed her lips softly against the corner of his mouth.

Takashi was so surprised that he almost stepped back, but her hold on him prevented it. "Rei..." he began gently, but her eyes opened and he found himself at a loss for words, staring down at red brown eyes that gazed up at him with captivating intensity. Their mouths were still just a finger's width apart, a fact made readily apparent by the heat of her short breaths against his skin, and as her eyelids drifted hesitantly shut, she closed that distance as well, but not before her tongue flicked out to wet her lips, a prelude to what would doubtless be a deeper, more sensual kiss.

And that was when Alice piped up cheerily, "Onii-chan! Onee-chan! Please use these!" Zeke, at her feet, barked once in punctuation and wagged his tail at Rei, while simultaneously growling daggers at Takashi.

Rei nearly jumped back in sudden surprise, at arm's length in an instant, a rising blush spreading throughout her lightly tanned complexion. Takashi felt his own face suffuse with warmth when he got a look at what Alice was holding in her small hands, arms outstretched – two fist fulls of latex condoms!

"What are you doing with those?!" Rei gasped in equal parts shock, embarrassment, and indignation, and quickly snatched the two strips of condoms from the girl's fingers. "Alice-chan, these aren't for little girls to play with! "

Alice pouted. "I know, but Kohta-chan told me to give them to you. He said it's for protection!"

Takashi nearly choked in laughter at that, but a glare from Rei made him cover up the sound with a deliberate clearing of his throat. "Hirano said that, did he?" he muttered wryly, stretching to look over the row of aisles to where Kohta and Saya were sorting through what looked like a pile of rain coats and ponchos.

"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" Rei growled under her breath, but Alice didn't seem to notice.

"Yep! So put them on already!" Alice beamed up at them.

Baffled and his face a furnace, Takashi made himself ask, "Uh, what, right now?"

"Uh huh! Why, don't you know how?"

"I'm pretty sure we can figure it out..." he trailed off, trying to keep himself from laughing.

"Takashi!" Rei scolded, and glared all the harder at the insolent grin he flashed in reply.

"Munchkin!" Saya exclaimed as she rushed hurriedly to join the small group clustered at the back of the store. She had selected a high-necked powder blue raincoat to wear over her clothes, and had a variegated bundle tucked beneath one arm, of presumably more rain gear. Saya took it all in at a glance and seemed to put everything together in a moment, what with Takashi and Rei, both blushing furiously, and the two strips of condoms flashing out of sight as Rei shoved them behind her back. Saya frowned in exaggerated disapproval at Alice and vigorously mussed the little girl's hair, which she bore with a disgruntled pout. "You're causing misunderstandings again!"

"Am not! I gave them to Takashi nii-chan and Rei onee-chan just like Kohta-chan asked!"

Saya smirked at the other two teens over the little girl's head. "Don't get any funny ideas, Takashi," she said slyly, sidling up to him to elbow his ribs, though her eyes were fixed on Rei, who now held the condoms in fists at her sides. She pointed at the two long guns leaning against the counter. "Kohta said we should put them on the gun barrels to make sure they don't get wet."

"Well then. I guess that makes more sense. Rei, mind giving me a hand?" Rei punched him lightly in the arm for that, which made Takashi laugh, but they went to work on the firearms nonetheless.

Saya dropped to a crouch in front of Alice. "Now you! Why don't you go see if Shizuka-sensei needs any help packing the supplies? And take Zeke with you." She scooped up the black and white dog and put him in Alice's arms.

"Okayyy," Alice grumbled, but skipped off to Shizuka all the same.

When Saya rose, Takashi and Rei were just about finished with the condoms. "Got these for you," she said, handing a dark green raincoat to Rei, and a yellow and black windbreaker to Takashi. "Sorry about the color – it was the only thing in your size."

Takashi shrugged the jacket on, testing the fit and range of motion of his arms. The jacket fit oddly over the belt and shoulder rig that Hirano had given him to hold the bulk of his shotgun shells, but Takashi surmised that it would be better not to expose the ammunition pouches to unnecessary moisture. "It'll do. No hood, though. Got a hat?"

"Yeah, a straw one, somewhere back there." She flicked a hand over her shoulder.

"I'll take it – beggars can't be choosers."

Saya tilted her head to indicate the store-room door in the back. "Anything useful in there?"

Rei answered as she zipped up the front of her raincoat. "Just more of the same – candy bars, chips, cup ramen. Bottled drinks, too. I think we have as much as we can carry as it is."

Saya nodded, considering. "If that door's lockable, maybe we should think about piling the rest of the stuff out here, in there. It'd be good to have a supply cache that's somewhat secure."

"You really think that's necessary?" Takashi asked, narrowing his brows. "We've barely seen any other survivors, and none of them were as mobile as we are. Even if we never pass this way again, chances are good that no one will touch any of this stuff."

"Think about it, Takashi. We haven't seen many people because most of them are probably holed up somewhere defensible. But when their food runs out, they'll be out here and scavenging, even if it means going up against 'them'. We weren't the first ones here – half of the store had been looted by the time we got here. Convenience stores like these will be the first hit since they're most numerous and they're not as the larger supermarkets, so they'll dry up quick. We should save what supplies we can."

"It's not right," Rei said, shaking her head. "This food isn't ours. We should just take what we need and leave the rest for anyone else might need it."

Saya scowled. "So what, you're saying you'd starve so you could feed someone you've never even met?"

"I'm saying that we're a lot better off than anyone else alive out there. We've got guns, we've got good fighters. We can take more risks than other groups who aren't as well equipped as we are. I don't think we need to start stockpiling food if it means taking it away from people who already have a harder time getting by."

Snorting, Saya crossed her arms and tossed her head, her pink twin tails whipping back in emphasis. "Altruism is for civilized societies, Rei. Things have changed. Kindness will get you killed now. If we don't plan for the worst, we're not going to last long, no matter how 'awesome' we seem at the moment."

Takashi felt his chest tighten at the memory of a search and retrieval mission that had gone terribly wrong, when a fellow survivor had lost his life in their attempt to secure blood plasma for an elderly woman – a mission that had proved fruitless in the end. Before the girls could say anything further, he interrupted brusquely, "It's a moot point now. We don't have enough time to search for the key, much less move all of that into the back room," he gestured to the foodstuffs on the shelves and strewn about on the floor. We need to get moving if we're going to make it to Rei's place before dusk."

The girls both shuddered at the thought of traveling in the dark, amid streets filled with "them". With the rain deadening sound and barely any light to see by, they might literally become surrounded by mobs of the creatures before they knew they were in any danger.

"Fine," Saya said curtly, "I'll get others ready to go." With a flat look for Takashi and a tight frown for Rei, she turned on her heels and walked away, her PVC raincoat swish-swishing behind her.

After Saya left, Rei looked Takashi up and down, weighing and measuring. Takashi just picked up his shotgun in one hand and offered her the rifle with the other. She spoke only after she had accepted the rifle and settled the straps of the sling over her rain coat.

"You agree with her, don't you?"

Takashi sighed. "Yeah, I guess. You guys made me your leader. So if it comes to choosing between saving ourselves or saving complete strangers, then I'll choose us. Without hesitation."

"So what about our parents? Our family, our friends?"

"As far as I'm concerned they're already part of our group – we just need to link up with them. But others are on their own. We can't be responsible for everyone who's out there and in trouble."

"And that means what – you're not going to try to help anyone else anymore, unless it's someone we know? That isn't like you."

Takashi pulled back slightly on the bolt handle of shotgun to make sure a shell was still chambered, and patted down his pockets to check for the loose shells he kept in easy access. He transferred them from the left coat pocket of his uniform to that of the windbreaker. "If we can save someone without much risk to us, then yeah, I'll do it. But I'm not going to take on hordes of them if it means losing half our group to save one person, or wasting resources for something that's useless in the long term. We're going to have to get used to the fact that we can't save everyone."

Rei remained silent for a long moment, simply looking him in the eyes. He returned the stare calmly. "You've changed," she said at last, "Gotten... darker. Because of the mall?"

Takashi shook his head. "I don't know. I just know that we won't last long unless we start seeing things as they are. She was right about that. Kindness can get you killed out there."

"I don't necessarily agree, but I'll live with your decision. You are our leader, after all." She gave him a slight smile.

It was at that time that Saeko walked up, her choice of rain gear a red trench coat that hugged her curves and suited her admirably. The katana that was her weapon of choice had been belted on over the coat, and she held closed, oriental style red parasol at her right side. Saeko tilted her head, taking in Rei's appearance briefly before turning her attention to Takashi. "Everyone is ready to depart, Takashi. Saya mentioned that we should leave soon as to not be caught out in the dark."

"Yes," Rei spoke up, shouldering in between Takashi and Saeko, "we were just going." Subconsciously she plucked at the green material of her rain slicker, eyeing Saeko's more fashionable trench coat with a slight twinge of envy.

"Very well then, Miyamoto," Saeko replied smoothly, stepping aside and sweeping an arm to invite Rei to pass. Once she did, Saeko put out that hand to stop Takashi, murmuring, "May I have a word with you alone, Takashi?"

Rei turned and scowled, but at a nod from Takashi, she stalked off to join the others at the front of the store.

"What did you want to talk about, Saeko?"

The tip of her red parasol lightly touched the latex condom covering the muzzle device at the end of his shotgun. "What did you do with the rest of these?" she asked with a smile. The nonchalant tone of her voice, coupled with the predatory gleam in her eye, made the question positively wicked.

Takashi swallowed, rather audibly, and blushed to shame two sunsets. "Uh, Rei has them, I think."

"Ah. More's the pity."

"Was that all you wanted to talk about?"

"Hardly." She crossed her arms, the parasol dangling from one hand as she gazed into Takashi's eyes. "I understand that we will be going into your – and Miyamoto's – neighborhood. I would like to take the lead."

"Why? She and I know the area better."

"Yes, but you also know the people. I am unsure whether or not you or she could swiftly do what needs to be done, if we ran into someone you knew who had turned into one of 'them'." Seeing Takashi's face darken, she laid a gloved hand lightly on his arm. "I do not say this to provoke you. But even a single moment's hesitation may mean disaster."

Takashi took a breath to calm himself, thinking about that in earnest. Would he freeze if he recognized one of "them"? Could he bring himself to kill one of "them" who had once been his mother, his father? He gritted his teeth. Maybe she was right. Regardless, it wasn't worth the the risk, when it meant he or someone else might die because of it. He would have to desensitize himself to those thoughts in the future.

"All right, that makes sense. I'll be relying on you again, it seems."

"And you will have me, Takashi. Always."

Her last words sent a shiver up his spine. Surely he wasn't imaging the deeper meaning behind that? "Ah," he said lamely, "Thanks." Takashi took a breath to steady his nerves, then said, "Right. Let's get moving then."

She answered his noncommittal reply with a small, knowing smile, then turned and walked away, the fabric of her red coat rustling lightly behind her. Takashi didn't fail to notice that the coat fit rather snugly over her hips before flaring out in a four piece slitted skirt. He moistened suddenly dry lips, then followed after, a few steps distant. Of all the problems he had before him – fighting for survival, finding his and Rei's parents, getting the hell out of the city – the two, and maybe three young women at his side were by far the most complicated, jumbling his thoughts while seeming totally oblivious of the fact. But there was no time to deal with that now. Hefting his shotgun, he took a moment to focus his mind and square away his thoughts, making ready to face a world filled with 'them'.

End Chapter 1