The water supply got cut off at the same time as the electricity. Takina had filled some buckets with water while Chisato was away getting that baseball bat, but the amount of water she had saved wouldn’t last them long.
They couldn’t stay holed up in the café, Takina decided. They didn’t have sufficient supplies to stay there long, and it was highly unlikely that anyone who could help them would find them in that little café.
The girls discussed their options as they checked their supplies in the light of the LED lantern.
“If a shopping mall is a no, then the only other place to go I can think of is…a Self-Defense Force base?”
Chisato had drilled many holes in the baseball bat, methodically filling each one with glue and pushing a nail in. The weapon was beginning to resemble a hedgehog.
“The JSDF…might have all been wiped out.”
Takina fetched as much ammunition as she could from their armory and began loading bullets into a magazine. She’d typically use round-nose full metal jacket bullets, but since their enemies would be mostly soft-bodied ex-humans, she went with hollow-points, reasoning that stopping power was more important than penetration.
“It doesn’t matter if the soldiers got wiped out. There’ll be supplies and weapons. Besides, they may be fine—the bases are supposed to function even if they get cut off from the grid if a war breaks out, right?”
She was right. JSDF bases were designed to be self-sufficient for a time even if they were completely cut off from local infrastructure…but Takina doubted the soldiers’ survival for another reason.
“I don’t think the JSDF would actually shoot anyone, even zombies.”
“Oh… Good point…”
Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers were taught how to use guns, but at the same time, it was instilled in them that they should never, ever shoot anyone. They were unlikely to be mentally prepared to use their guns against their fellow countrymen, even if they had become zombies. As a rule, soldiers who were deemed capable of shooting anyone would either be expelled or moved to special forces.
If the zombies made it inside the bases, the soldiers would probably all end up zombified.
“Will you shoot them, Chisato?”
Chisato stopped sticking nails into her bat. Takina also paused what she was doing and looked straight at Chisato.
“Dunno… I don’t like the idea of killing anyone…but they’re zombies.”
“From what I can see, you can’t wait to start killing the zombies.”
Chisato looked down at the spiked bat and laughed. It wasn’t the sort of weapon you’d choose if you weren’t prepared to kill.
“It’s probably a dream anyway, and we’ll be fighting zombies, not people… If I have to, I’ll shoot them with the bullets I normally use.”
“Why not make an exception?”
“You know, even in games, I don’t like to change my play style just because another style might be stronger or more efficient, or it would up my chances of winning.”
“It’s a matter of pride, then?”
“Nah, I wouldn’t call it that. I just want to be myself right until the very end.”
“I see.”
Takina started loading Chisato’s magazines. If the zombies were in a state of decomposition, then Chisato’s rubber bullets would be just as effective against them. Or perhaps even more effective than regular rounds. If the zombies they were dealing with were as unnaturally soft as zombies in movies, then even hollow-point bullets might simply pass through them. Meanwhile, frangible plastic rounds worked both on hard and soft targets, and they might pack even more of a punch when the target was soft.
“So, Takina. Where do you think we should go?”
“DA headquarters.”
“Oh, good one!”
DA HQ was surrounded by a fence, and it was equipped to function self-sufficiently, although maybe not to the same extent as JSDF bases. DA had its own bases all over the country, but the one in the capital was the main one, where Chisato had grown up and Takina had trained. The headquarters used to be in Kyoto, but when Tokyo was made the new capital, DA moved their main forces there, building facilities for raising and training Lycoris, becoming Japan’s largest and best-equipped extrajudicial anti-terrorist organization.
The reason Takina suggested DA HQ was that its members were trained for combat and conditioned to kill. They weren’t taught only how to restrain armed opponents who attacked them first—they’d kill a defenseless person without a second thought if DA decided that person needed to be killed. National emergencies were their bread and butter. There was no organization better equipped to deal with the zombies than them.
Takina also suspected that there might be sister organizations DA would be able to reach out to.
DA was short for “Direct Attack.” A strange name for a secret organization. If it were a standalone organization, it would seem more appropriate for it to go by a vague codename, like the Lycoris did. Takina always suspected that “Direct Attack” sounded more like the name of a specialized group that maintained public order in Japan together with others, who, unlike DA, didn’t directly attack targets. DA was either allied with multiple other extrajudicial groups or just one organ of a much larger organization. There had to be some supervisory organization that had given DA its name.
Of course, nobody had ever mentioned the existence of such an organization to Takina. Still, anyone who thought about DA’s name would likely arrive at the same conclusion as she did. It was taboo, though, so the Lycoris didn’t discuss it even among themselves.
Whatever this secret umbrella organization was, it was certainly the most reliable institution out there, with the best combat readiness and survival potential.
“Okay, then, Takina. Let’s go say hi to Ms. Kusunoki!” Chisato said casually after Takina told her about her theory.
Did Chisato suspect the same? Or…did she know that there was an umbrella organization encompassing DA? Takina had a feeling that Fuki Harukawa was also in the know. Maybe once you became a first-rank Lycoris, DA shared some secrets with you?
Takina wondered if she’d ever be trusted with the whole truth about DA. Maybe when she finally put on a red First Lycoris uniform…
But that might never happen, with the world being taken over by zombies. It was pointless to daydream. Rather than let her mind wander or dwell on how frustrating the whole thing was, she should focus on surviving. She had to get a grip on herself.