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The world had ended. The beginning of a new era, Tenri Hiiragi declared to the assembly. Forget old dates, it was the first year of the new world. Year Zero.
Humanity had been wiped out by a divine virus, only those spared were under the age of thirteen; unless they were contracted to a demon or given a vaccine derived from one.
It wasn’t unthinkable other preternatural diseases could arise.
The concrete slowly became more and more uncomfortable the longer he had sprawled upon it.
There were eight snipers including himself, their focus aimed on the old entrance to a subway. They had spread out in a crumbling apartment building across from the station. Waiting for three hours now.
He was propped up on elbows, waiting for any sign of movement.
Intelligence had discovered a small encampment in Yogenjaya Station. Long range weapon users from different squads were recruited for the operation.
The plan was for the two ground squads to flush out the vampires into a hail of projectiles. They had to go to a farther location to sneak inside.
It was unusual, the tickle in his throat; Shinya no longer caught colds, the demonic contract was in his blood.
Laying down, waiting, watching for movement.
Something was caught in his lung.
It burned as he violently hacked the foreign object out.
He smeared the remnants of his cough away with his arm. There on the black sleeve, laid a single slightly round white petal. Slickened with saliva it remained stuck to the fabric.
His eyes widened at the odd sight, but he chose to ignore it, he had a mission.
Shinya tucked his hair behind his ear. He rolled back over into position, thankfully the operation hadn't started, or been compromised while he was distracted.
A small movement caught his eye. A small brown furred animal wandered across the plaza, before it chose a sunny spot to lay down.
That itself was an unusual occurrence, cats and dogs that survived were feral. He had to shoot a dog on one occasion to keep it from maiming a kid.
Maybe one of the vampire cattle children kept it as a pet.
He wasn't too far away from the encampment, and he recalled cats liked to wander.
Soon after the end, the rodent population exploded due to abundance of food, and thus the cat and dog population did as well, but they eventually collapsed due to lack of prey. The Four Horsemen of John also killed any living thing indiscriminately.
Sounds of shouting reverberated out of the subway entrance. Shinya held his breath and concentrated.
Shinya walked out of the apartment and greeted the ground crew to confirm that they had successfully eliminated all the vampires today.
The group hurried back to the underground, they had to secure the children the vampires held hostage.
Shinya fell behind, wracked by another burning sensation that made it hard to breathe. The intruder had to be coughed out of his lungs before he could move on.
“Are you okay Shinya-sama?” Goshi had come back to check on him with his coughing fit.
“Never better,” he replied.
With the next spring, the snow melted and flowers bloomed, pollen dusted the city streets.
Shinya collapsed. He could no longer breathe. A handful of petals.
He wanted to pry open his chest, air out his lungs, his heart.
Shinya woke up alone in a hospital bed. He was alone, isolated, a hood pumped oxygen over him. Doctors and nurses came in covered head to toe in green plastic. They didn’t know what was wrong with him.
They told him two other people had come in with the same affliction, it did not matter if they were twisted with a demon or not.
The army was wary, how did it spread? They didn’t take any chances.
A week went by, the blue bucket was his new friend, it held the petals he kept heaving out. His old friends were banned from seeing him.
The door burst open, and Shinya was disappointed at the dark haired man who stepped inside.
“Aren’t you too important to be in here? Worried about catching whatever it is I have?”
Kureto was not wearing any protective gear, not even a mask to cover his somber face, but he just shrugged.
“We have determined it is not communicable.”
Shinya swallowed. He didn’t want to know the answer, but he had to ask.
“And just how did you figure that out?”
“The first subject, a regular human, we put another person in the room with them. Even when we infused them with the subject’s blood, they did not exhibit any symptoms.”
Shinya grimaced. He didn’t want to hear, Kureto continued on.
“The second subject, a cursed gear user, we operated on them.”
They pried open the person’s chest, sliced into their lungs, but when they looked, the space was empty. No tree, no plant, no blooms inside. Baffled, the surgeons closed them up, the patient recovered from the surgery, but when they woke up they vomited petals.
“The third subject is you.”
“Me? Hmph.”
“You’re the most valuable of the three, you’re the control case.”
“Well I asked Byakkomaru, but he has no idea what it is either.” Being trapped in this stifling room with it’s white walls was suffocating. “How much longer am I going to be stuck here?”
“The doctors tell me you’re recovering, producing less flowers.”
That was true, they took the bucket, weighed it, emptied the contents daily.
Shinya was quiet.
“Recover soon. We need you back on the field.”
With that he turned on his heel and left. Only the shining spring sun lit up the room. Shinya sighed.
Within a month he stopped coughing up petals by the handful, returned to active duty. Sometimes it was daily, sometimes it was weekly, but never longer than a month when another flower bloomed from his lungs.
The next spring hit and his symptoms became unmanageable again. The amount of patients had more than doubled.
The summer sun beat down on the road. From their position a fake puddle of water laid in the distance, sizzling, shimmering.
The crimson sports car he had found drank fuel. Shinya lopped his head against the burning leather of the steering wheel, turned to face his passenger.
“What rotten luck, ne?”
Guren crossed his arms. “You’re the one that drove us out here.”
“Sorry~, Sorry~”
“I doubt you’ve ever been sorry.”
“True.” Shinya pursed his lips. “But this time I’m serious. We’ll probably wither up and dry up in this tin can.”
“We can just open the door and leave.”
“But it took so long to find one in a colour I liked.” Shinya deeply sighed. “Just bury me in it.”
Shinya didn’t miss the way Guren’s jaw went rigid.
“So Guren, I don’t know your last wishes. Do you want to be cremated or?”
“I’d prefer this to not be my coffin. But I don’t know. I guess I would be buried in the Order of Imperial Moon’s style.”
“But do you want that?”
The gears turned as he quietly thought about it. “Yeah.” He shrugged and laid a hand on the door handle, but didn’t open it.
The air in the enclosed vehicle was stagnant, he could feel the sweat starting to bead on his skin.
Guren didn’t take the bait and ask him, Shinya was unsure why so he answered himself. “I don’t care what you do with me.”
“Why not?”
“Cremate me, bury me, leave my sweet self to dry out in the wind. Funerals are for the living.”
Guren’s expression turned solemn. “Don’t talk about dying anymore Shinya.” He turned away and opened the car door. A gush of fresh air breezed in. “There might be fuel nearby.”
The door closed shut, leaving him sealed inside once again.
He still didn’t know what was bothering Guren.
Shinya felt a tickle in his throat, and coughed up a single petal before leaving to follow.
In the third year, curiously one of the other initial subjects had stopped producing blooms with each breath.
The army seized them, made them talk, tried to figure out why they no longer were polluted with flowers.
This person had confessed and been rejected, they no longer were smitten with the former object of their affection.
Vehement denial crystallized.
“Lovesickness?” Shinya spat the word back at the doctor. “I’ve never heard of something so ridiculous.”
The doctor, with their crisp clean white coat tried to explain further.
Shinya summoned Byakkomaru out of the metaphysical plane. He brandished the gun, aimed it directly at their chest.
“Get out.”
“Hiiragi-sama.”
“Get. Out.”
They backed up slowly, hands raised, until they hit the door. Scrabbling to open the door knob behind them.
Mito sat on a chair next to the hospital bed. She was the only one that would tolerate him when he was like this.
“Shinya-sama, wouldn’t it be easier if you just-”
“No,” he coughed, “there’s nothing to discuss.”
Violent coughs wracked his body as he tried to swallow air.
Mito patted his back, said nothing.
The affliction started to curtail yet again, Shinya was sure that he would only be stuck in this godforsaken hospital room for a few more days.
He was surprised when a knock rapped at his door. The evening was growing late, summer had hardly started, and barely anyone visited him here. He was more likely to go poking at other people's rooms instead.
Shinya greeted Guren in surprise, welcoming him into his seldom used office. He sat back down at a free chair, but Guren remained standing there staring at him with a grim expression.
Usually the silence between them was comforting to Shinya, an unspoken trust, but right now...
“I can tell you’re not here for pleasantries.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To talk.”
Guren left it at that, the unpleasant tension gnawing until Shinya spoke up.
“Then speak, I’m not holding your tongue.”
“The physicians told me that the symptoms would subside if one confessed.”
Anger welled up from the pit of his gut. Guren waltzed in here to make him humiliate himself.
“That’s impossible, I don’t feel anything.”
“Nothing? That can’t be right.”
“Well guess what? It’s true. I haven’t felt anything since I was a child.”
Guren was quiet for a breath. “I’ve seen you-”
Shinya cut him off. “Everything is an act, a performance, playing at being a human being.”
An empty shell, the old self was removed. Parts swapped out like a robot, soon he was replaced with something else when he was bought by the Hiiragi family. Every time he struck down another kid, when he heard one of them scream in the night, it ate away at his soul until there was nothing left.
“So you’re saying you’re just the amalgamation of what the Hiiragis made out of you?”
“That’s right.” Shinya swallowed, already regretting saying that much. “So get out.”
Guren grabbed his shoulders, purple eyes blazing right down at him, through him. “That might have been true when we first met, but you’ve changed, you’re different now.”
Eyes closed, he said,“No, I’ve been dead since I was five years old.”
Shinya missed the shock and guilt rippling across Guren’s visage. He felt the grip on his shoulders tighten.
“You’re alive Shinya. Even though you loathe to admit it.”
“There’s no purpose for it though, is there? In a world like this.”
“You told me you would believe me when I said life had meaning.”
“I did.”
“Then it doesn’t, if that means living life without you in it.”
Shinya stared at him incredulously. Guren was so serious, he wanted to laugh, break the tension, forget this ever happened.
Guren let go of one of his shoulders to violently cough into his sleeve.
“What are you playing at? Mocking me?” he asked angrily.
Shinya’s rage dissipated and his blood ran cold as he saw it.
“No, you idiot.” Guren held the small white petal between his fingers. “I’m the same as you.”