January 24
Mornings were cold, but Huaxiu still crawled out of bed in a sleepy haze the moment her body clock nudged her awake. The heavy blanket slid off her smooth body, leaving her skin exposed to the frigid air.
"Brr… so cold… Good morning, dawn."
Still yawning, Huaxiu rubbed at her slightly puffy eyes. Her long, messy hair brushed across her face, making her squirm in annoyance. She reached toward the low bedside cabinet beside her, felt around for her phone, and picked it up. The handset was icy in her palm. When the cracked screen lit up, the pale glow delivered exactly the information she wanted.
6:50 a.m. Perfect timing. She'd slept for about eight and a half hours.
Early to bed, early to rise—good for the body. Time to make breakfast.
Food was abundant, supplies were stable, and in a strange way, Huaxiu sometimes felt their life now was almost better than before.
Aside from having no internet, no takeout… and that home she could never return to.
No need to trudge through school on a rigid schedule, no need to work, no need to navigate all those exhausting social obligations. There was a certain freedom to it.
Of course, if anyone asked her what kind of life she truly wanted, Huaxiu would still choose the old days without hesitation.
Because this so-called freedom came with a price: living on the edge of death every single day. At any moment, one accident could take everything away.
It wasn't just the Infected roaming outside. In a world like this, freezing weather, hunger, dirty water, badly cooked food, spoiled food, even a minor illness could kill you.
Huaxiu understood perfectly well why life felt so comfortable now.
Wasn't it all because of the person lying beside her?
Without Takajo Xiangzi, she would have died that night.
She would never forget that evening: starving, freezing, having already resolved to die as a human being rather than become something else.
And then that girl had reached out a hand to her.
"Rest a little longer, my dear."
Huaxiu gently tugged Xiangzi's blanket a little higher, making sure the cold air wouldn't seep in and chill her. Then she got dressed, tied back her hair with a band, and quickly pulled it into a simple ponytail.
Sooner or later, she was going to cut this long hair. It was too troublesome. In a fight, long hair was just a liability. When they had more time, she would trim it short—something cleaner, sharper, more practical.
Before leaving, Huaxiu added more fuel to the stove in the room and cracked the window open just a sliver so the room wouldn't get too stuffy.
"I'll keep doing my best. So you just rest a little longer, Xiang…"
As she stepped out, Huaxiu glanced at the two bedridden figures again. Neither looked close to waking. Xiangzi, who was usually so lively and dependable, had now become the one being cared for. The role reversal still felt strange to Huaxiu.
She pushed the thought away. There was too much to do today. With two of their people sidelined, the workload distributed across everyone else had only gotten heavier.
Sure, Saitō and the other two had said they would come help today—but the trip from their place was long, and they had lives and concerns of their own.
Last night had been warm and cheerful, yes, but knowing someone's face did not mean knowing their heart. Were they sincere, or merely being polite? How could girls with so little life experience possibly see through a man who had lived more than half a lifetime?
Maybe Miranda could. She was, after all, the heir of a wealthy family. Huaxiu had never heard of the name before, but a girl raised to inherit a household like that had to be better at reading people than she was.
If Miranda knew what Huaxiu was thinking, she'd probably laugh and not know whether to cry or not. Being an heir didn't mean she was some master schemer. She'd only learned the basics. Her mother still handled the truly serious matters. Miranda herself mostly just helped with errands and peripheral business. Expecting a college student with limited real-world experience to expertly untangle people's true motives was giving her way too much credit.
Smoke curled up from the chimney on the first floor. Water in the pot came to a boil. Breakfast time had come.
While Huaxiu cooked, the other three woke as well.
Miranda, Taoris, and Brent didn't head to the kitchen. Miranda took her younger sister outside and resumed the post-battle cleanup that still wasn't finished. Brent's task was a little more specialized: repairing their precious firearms.
As a former soldier who had seen real combat, Brent knew how to maintain guns.
The fight from the night before had pushed them hard. Every weapon had taken some kind of damage. Pistols and sniper rifles had fared relatively well, but the Inviscer compound bow was practically on its last legs, its string frayed nearly to snapping. The rifles were worse—barrels scorched red from continuous fire, especially the ones fitted with suppressors. At the moment, very few of their assault rifles could be considered fully reliable.
Xiangzi's Type 20 was the worst of the lot.
In Brent's words:
"This thing's a death trap now. Try firing it again and there's a good chance it'll blow up in the shooter's face."
Fortunately, among the gear looted from the mercenaries were proper tools and spare parts.
She grabbed the keys and went out to the vehicle to retrieve a large olive-drab toolkit.
"If only this thing still had ammo for its cannon… What a waste," Brent muttered as she looked at the Type 24 infantry fighting vehicle.
Still, cannon or no cannon, they had survived.
She'd set up a makeshift workbench on an ornate table. It was now littered with parts and blackened powder residue. Since most of these weapons had already been used hard before they ever came into their hands, Brent checked everything thoroughly. Some of the rifling in a few barrels was practically worn flat.
Tools clicked and scraped in her hands—chisels, wrenches, rods, copper brushes—used to strip the weapons, clean the barrels, and scrape out layers of burnt powder and grime.
The bag also held critical spare parts: firing pins, springs, extractors, even replacement barrels. Most were for Type 89 rifles.
At last came the oiling and final wipe-down.
One rifle fixed.
Brent pulled off her gloves and wiped sweat from her forehead. Bad move. Her hands were filthy, and now she'd smeared grime across her face too.
Just as she was about to keep going, her stomach reminded her it wanted food.
Right on cue, Huaxiu's gentle voice drifted over.
"Breakfast is ready. Brent, go call Miranda and Taoris. You eat first—I'm taking food upstairs for the two patients."
Huaxiu stepped out of the kitchen carrying white radish and venison soup made from the deer meat they'd had left over from yesterday. There was rice porridge simmering in the kitchen as well.
Brent quickly wiped at her dirty hands and answered gratefully,
"Got it. Thank you for the meal, Miss Huaxiu!"
"No need to be so formal. Go wash your face—you look like you just climbed out of a coal mine."
Huaxiu laughed, and Brent laughed too. On the way to call Miranda, she grabbed a clump of snow off the ground and scrubbed at her hands with it, melting the mess into muddy black water.
Brent had no choice but to go inside and properly wash up with soap and water.
"Hurry up, Brent! This stew smells amazing! If you take any longer, Taoris and I are going to drink it all!" Miranda teased from the table, her face bright with mischief.
Brent hurried to wipe her face clean, her steps quickening.
"Miss, don't do that! Leave me some!"
"What, you think I'd really eat everything? Miss Huaxiu made plenty. More than enough for everyone."
"You really…"
Amid the laughter and teasing, morning passed at Xiangzi's camp.
But far away—hundreds of miles off—the outskirts of Osaka no longer resembled anything human.
Collapsed buildings. Leaning towers. Endless ruins. Calling it a landscape of blood and fire would not have been an exaggeration.
Before the front line, severed limbs, twisted steel, congealed blood, and broken masonry had been churned into the earth over and over by shellfire.
The fortress the Japanese government had hastily erected there was still holding—for now.
The fighting had grown unbelievably intense. The southern advance of the Infected had piled up here in layer after layer. Even the mindless masses alone were enough to leave the defenders reeling, to say nothing of the artillery bombardment poured down by the Holy Disciple forces.
Here, flesh and blood were cheaper than dirt. Both sides were feeding men and monsters into the grinder for every yard of ground.
Casualty counts had long since ceased to mean anything more than numbers on a report.
To be the final victor, both sides kept throwing more into the fire.
Osaka had once been known as Naniwa-kyō. The Ishiyama Hongan-ji struggle had altered the fate of the Oda clan, and after the Siege of Osaka, Toyotomi rule had come to an end there.
And now, centuries later, another great battle was being fought on the same soil.
The future of the Japanese archipelago might very well be decided there.
[End of Chapter]
Join here to read ahead.
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