Chương 18: Wakizashi

Hearing those words, Jared's head snapped in Oscar's direction. He never looked so worried and distressed from actually shooting someone that may be alive and was just pretending to walk among the dead. Everyone else from the group was thinking the same thing but Oscar clarified the situation for them.

"No, it's not what you guys think. Look at his arm by the elbow. See the hole? He must've been using psychedelics and he probably overdosed then turned after. I've seen a lot of those holes to know what would happen next."

"It's also probably the same case with the guy in the airport. The one you killed had a white substance on his clothes," I added.

"But how did those zombies get here? I stayed on guard duty too, how did some of them come from the right side?" Mark inquired.

"We can't really say because no one was on guard duty when we were eating breakfast. But yeah, it's not like the dead could come from a single road. It just means that some of the people that decided to stay at home or something similar didn't make it. We need to check the cameras to confirm that but that's the logical answer. Also, we need to start our plan as soon as possible."

Oscar nodded, "That's what we should do right now, I agree."

After that, we placed all of the corpses on a pedicab before we carefully drove on the left side of the road. We piled them on a vacant lot right by a street corner before we started to burn them. Looking around, the streets were pretty empty with crawlers but if we were talking about the living-breathing kind, aside from us, I spotted a few heads peeking out from the windows of some houses.

'Not interested in striking up a conversation eh? It's good to be cautious though, we'll see in a few more days…'

Oscar probably saw the same people that I did but we both decided to put it out of our minds. We just watched the corpses getting burned to a crisp in the meantime but we'd add more gasoline if it started to get smaller. On that note, we made sure to turn them into complete carbon so there would be no issue of their remains or their remnant fluids—if they didn't turn to cinders—spreading elsewhere.

After a few minutes, we went back to the compound but there was an argument happening.

It was between Jo and Manilyn though the subject of their argument was their daughter, Cleo. Nora, Jo's mother, seemed to have taken her elsewhere but everyone else watching them was surprised or confused as to what was happening. With that said, their argument must've just started but Manilyn was doing most of the arguing.

"You need to calm down, everything is gonna be fine," Jo calmly said as he tried to hold Manilyn and reassure her.

"HOW?! TELL ME! DON'T YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT OUR GIRL?! SHE'S JUST 5!" Manilyn bellowed.

"Calm down! I'm her father! Do you think I don't?! I'm doing my best here aren't I?!" Jo shook his head in disappointment.

"Do you know what she told me this morning?! She told me, 'Mommy, are we gonna die too, like the people in the news?' D'you have any idea what that felt like as her mother?! I can't even answer her!" Manilyn continued to cry out as tears started to fall on her face.

Hearing that, everyone was silent though a few were in complete disagreement.

At that point, Manilyn stormed off to their room while Jo followed after her, after giving out a long sigh. I was about to follow after them but Aunt Sharon held my shoulder.

"Give them space, for now. I'll talk to them later," Aunt Sharon said to me with a solemn expression.

"Okay…"

When I sat down and looked around, a few were wearing somber expressions, especially the parents or the ones that had a younger sibling the same age as Cleo.

It was a shitty feeling knowing that your child's future would be extremely different from what they hoped it to be for them. However, I decided to let my Aunt Sharon handle it because she understood the challenge of being a parent more than I do. Well, it was still quiet for a while until we heard a small voice from somewhere.

"We're going to get through this you know..."

It was Aya.

"We got everyone here, right?" Aya continued with an expression that she firmly believed what she said, "We're gonna be ok! I'm sure of it!"

It didn't take long before the gloomy expressions turned to lighter ones. Aunt Sharon hugged her daughter tightly before she escaped and walked toward me with her hands raised. The group was looking at me but I was also confused by what she was implying.

"What? I didn't pay you to say that," I said flatly as the group almost lost their footing.

"What? No, where's my peanut nips? I almost forgot to ask you!" Aya said as she adjusted her glasses.

"Oh! I remember telling you that they were called 'Trailmix', right? Did you forget?" I replied, smiling.

"Hmm? Oh, right, right. I'll remember what you say from now on, I promise!" Aya exclaimed, smiling brightly.

I couldn't help but snort as I laughed at her response. Kaley couldn't help but smile as well because she remembered the short story about the bag of Trailmix I bought. With that said, I asked Aya to follow me to my house so she could get her little present while Unc Zeidrick and the others started to work on our building project.

As I opened the door to my room, Zeus zoomed past us and he started to make a mess of the blankets on my bed. He was snuggly covering himself with it but he jumped down when he heard the rustling of plastic bags that contained the bag of sweets. Zeus whimpered when I told him he couldn't have them because they had chocolates, though it was an adorable sight, seeing my little cousin carrying a bag that was almost as big as her.

"Don't eat them all in one sitting, okay?"

"Okay! Oh, what is that again? You call those samurais, right?" Aya asked as she pointed to my sword rack that had three blades placed horizontally.

"No, a samurai is the person who uses them. Okay, let me give you a brief lesson. This here is a katana, this shorter one is a wakizashi, and this last one that looks like a small knife is called a tanto… got it?" I said as I pointed to each one of them.

They only had subtle decorations compared to ceremonial ones but they looked slick from the way the little engravings were subtly carved on. It wouldn't catch as much attention from afar but you'd notice how fine the craftsmanship was the moment you take a closer look.

The colors were mostly black aside from the habaki(ferrule), the seppas(spacers), the menuki(ornament), and the kashira(pommel) respectively because they were made with an alloy that looked similar to copper mixed with brass.

Furthermore, the tsuba(handguard), was dark-grayish in color and it looked like the tattoo on my arm. The saya(scabbard) had the same design but you'd have to take a closer look at it to notice as I mentioned earlier.

"Got it! Oh, but where is the other one?" Aya replied as she pointed to the topmost part of the rack.

It had a groove where one more blade, which was much longer, could be placed down.

"Yeah, that's where you put a tachi, it's much longer than this katana here. It's this~~~~~ long~" I replied as I motioned with my hands going apart, farther and farther.

Aya was looking curiously but I gave her a light push on the forehead when one of my hands got closer. She started laughing when she almost bumped into Zeus but I never told her where the tachi was. It was being kept safely after a certain incident though that was a story for another time.

Aya started to ask more questions but after she had her fill, I took the wakizashi from the rack and secured it horizontally on the back of my hips, the handle located on my left-hand side.

When we went down, Aya carried the bag with both of her hands while Zeus was just happily circling around us. Lois saw us come down and he smiled when he saw the wakizashi on the back of my hip.

"Hey~ you finally brought the katana," Lois commented.

"Wakizashi," Aya said, looking at her brother weirdly.

As soon as Aya interjected, I couldn't help but chuckle at Lois' reaction. It was equal parts confusion and adoration because he just realized he was wrong and Aya actually knew the correct term.

After that, I asked Rin for a clipboard with everyone's names to assign tasks but before I started, Arnel came up to me with two of his three children who were around the same age as Jared and Lois.

"Hey Boss, these two wanted to help, anything for them? Stanley, my eldest, is good with his hands, and Ian, my second eldest, is athletic."

"Hey, what's up?" I said to the two.

"Really surprised when I was taken from school by Ian but so far, doing pretty good," Stanley replied.

"I'm doing good as well," Ian added.

"Alright. I'm just about to figure out the tasks for everyone today, so I'll call you two after I'm done, But yeah," I turned to Stanley, "You could help Unc Zeidrick with drawing up the design of the catwalk while you," I turned to Ian, "Could help Unc Zardon with the supplies from the storage area."

Ian walked up to me, "Help with what exactly?"

"Well, everyone rushed bringing in items from all around so it looked unorganized, so you'll help with carrying some of the stuff though Rin will tell you all where to place each item."

"Oh."

I chuckled, "It sounds tedious—and it is—but we would have more room for storage if everything was stacked neatly. But yeah, that's what I think I'll put the two of you in but there might be more after we're done. Some of them could be completed faster than others so some of you might have two jobs rather than one."

After that, the two just nodded before they excused themselves with their dad.

I was about to call Rin to assist me with giving tasks but turns out, she was still behind me, eyeing the blade on my hip. She was startled when she saw me looking at her looking at my wakizashi, and she adjusted her glasses and looked away in an instant. It was a funny sight but I waved her over after shaking my head in amusement.

"Rin, come here. I got something to do for you."

"Y-Yes… Sorry for staring," Rin bowed apologetically before she inched closer to me.

I glanced at my wakizashi before pulling it out, "You're looking at this, right? Wanna hold it? Careful though… It's sharp, fucking sharp."

"C-Can I?! I— Wow~!"

Rin never looked so excited when I handed over my blade, and she was over the moon when my blade rang as she pulled it out.

"Don't touch the edge, okay? It'll cut you even if you delicately trace your fingers on them."

"R-Really?! Wow… Let's see…" Rin started to inspect every inch of my blade and she immediately had a thought, "It's a bit short… It's a wakizashi, right?"

I smiled and nodded approvingly, "Yep. You're right. Hey, I never asked but you have Japanese lineage too, right?"

Rin nodded a few times, "Oh, y-yes. My late grandfather is quarter Japanese."

"Cool, I'm half. I'm surprised we didn't talk about it sooner," I replied as I chuckled.

"Right! I forgot to ask you too, but it's really cool to know that!"

After that, we chatted for a short bit—even speaking in our other tongue—after she returned my blade, then we started to come up with a list that would play on everyone's strengths, mostly.