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Aberrant: Dead Rising - Zombie Day comes to Colorado


Himiko

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Chapter 1 "But I just wanted a cheeseburger!"

Himiko looked around her room, thinking how little it had changed while she was gone, and how much she had changed. The discipline of the army had been nothing new, but actual combat, fighting for her life, and killing to defend her country,, well, that changes anyone. There was a small, dark part of herself that she tried to deny that had actually revelled in the battle, in the test of might and cunning and the death of her enemies. Hopefully that was a side of herself she would never need to bring out again.

Sitting on her bed, she decided that she had done enough relaxing. She wanted to do something nice for her family after the party they had thrown for her return, so she decided to run into town and get the ingredients to make a homemade steak dinner with cheesecake for dessert. Sure, they had a cook, but sometimes it was fun to do things herself. It just made things more real, somehow, even if she wasn't as good a cook as Edmund.

Resolved, she changed clothes, switching to a green sports bra, black jogging shorts with red trim, and a green sweatshirt with the Harvard logo on it. She hadn't started yet, but in a month and a half, she would be an official ivy league student. She paused to look in the mirror.

Her mixed heritage had had mixed results. Her bright red hair looked more like a dye job than ever in a military buzzcut. Her green eyes were slightly slanted where they rested on high rounded cheekbones, while her jaw came to a delicate, almost elfin point. Her ears fortunately failed to attract attention, unlike her nose, which somehow tried to be blunt and delicate at the same time, resulting in neither. She had a slim, athletic build, what little body fat she had had having been driven out of her in active service. She hoped to pack on a little fat to soften the edges a bit, having never felt that a woman should try to look like a man, but was happy with the muscles she had. The biggest disappointment, and something she hoped to reverse with a slightly more carb heavy diet, was the shrinkage that had occurred in her bust line as she had lost fat. She'd never had a lot to begin with, and so missed that little bit of extra proof that she was a woman and not just a scrawny guy. Then again, spending almost all of your time around guys dressed in the same uniform as the guys was bound to give a girl a self image problem.

She headed down to the front door, where she slipped on a pair of sneakers from the engawa. Her grandfather made some concessions to the different climate of Colorado when he had this place built, but he insisted on certain Japanese customs, so the family kept their shoes and coats in the entry hall. She had grown up with it, so it didn't bother her, and she was very glad of the furo he insisted be installed in place of a standard Western bath when she got back from her tour of duty.

She opened the front door and called out, "Itte Kimasu! I'll be back in a little while!' then headed out.

A few minutes jog brought her to the front gate, where the gateman greeted her deferentially.

"Going for a run, Hoshimitsu-san?" Haro asked as he keyed open the gate.

"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Himiko-san?? I've only known you since I was three." She smiled indulgently as they continued a conversation that had become almost a ritual between them. "And, yeah, I thought I'd pop into town for a bit."

"It really wouldn't be right, Hoshimitsu-san. After all your grandfather did for me, his family will always have my respect," he concluded, as usual.

Waving, Himiko jogged through the gate and towards town. It was only a mile to the outskirts, and maybe a half mile beyond that to the grocery store, so she had barely gotten warmed up by the run. She started to head into the Giant Eagle, when her gaze was drawn across the street to the holiest of holys... Krystal. *MMmmmm, I haven't had a Krystal in 2 years. Ju-unk foo~ood, ju~nk foo~ood.*

Sufficiently distracted, she turned away from the grocery store, and the large number of very sick people sitting in the waiting area of the pharmacy, hoping to be taken care of. While there was a fire and police station, and a couple of larger stores, the nearest hospital was 60 miles away, so most people just went to the pharmacist, especially for a cold or the flu. Both of the town's doctors had come down with the flu themselves, and were therefore not really up to helping anyone.

Inside the Krystal, Himiko ordered a sack of 24 Krystals, dine in. The cashier looked at her a bit funny, but took the order, and moments later, cheeseburgery deliciousness was hers. She munched through them steadily, devouring one after the other but taking care to enjoy each one before finally, sated, she leaned back in her chair and gazed upon the empty bag. *I needed that.* Most people forget that the winners of serious eating competitions are always the little skinny guys. Kobayashi? Toothpick. A high metabolism coupled with intense exercise to keep it that way causes hunger to grow to bounds the average person has never imagined.

She looked up at the sound of sirens approaching. First a fire truck, then a police car pulled up outside of the grocery store, followed shortly by another police car. *Perhaps I should see if I can help,* she thought to herself. Before she could leave the building, though, she heard the sound of screams. Snapping to a quick decision, she grabbed a broom from the hands of a nearby employee, unscrewing the end to make a simple but effective makeshift staff, just in case.

She barked at the dazed looking employees, "Lock the doors. Whatever is going on over there might come this way. If I'm overreacting you can laugh about it later." She then stepped outside and marched purposefully across the street and into the parking lot before the first figure emerged from the supermarket. The person was grayhaired and stooped over, but as it sensed some noise or motion its head snapped up to gaze directly at Himiko. This revealed the visage of a kindly old lady twisted into a rictus of hunger, blood covering the lower half of her face and the front of her dress. There was no sign of sanity in her eyes at all. She charged in a shambling walk that managed to cover ground surprisingly rapidly, arms outstretched.

Not wanting to hurt her if she could avoid it, Himiko swept the madwoman's legs out from under her and stepped back. The woman didn't stay down long, charging forward on all fours. Himiko struck her shoulder, dislocating it, but the woman didn't even seem to notice other than to be a little annoyed that it wouldn't work right anymore.

At this point, Himiko decided that there was no way to stop her short of killing her. Making it past the cops and into the street made her a danger to everyone, speaking of which, where were those cops? A series of blows had the woman momentarily disabled, lying on her back, when Himiko finished her off by jamming the metal end of the broom(the part that screwed into the head) down into one of her eyes, through the thinnest part of her skull, and into her brain. This should have resulted in effectively instant death, but the woman still thrashed around aimlessly for a few moments before going still.

A sound caused her to look up and see several more figures shambling out of the grocery store. As a trained soldier, she knew exactly what to do. She yanked her staff out of the woman at her feet, then promptly turned and ran for her life. Through the parking lot, across the road, through Krystal's parking lot--not once did she look back; not that she needed to with the sounds coming from behind her. She knew that she couldn't risk the people inside the building by asking them to unlock the doors, and if they hadn't locked them by this point they were screwed, so she didn't head for the door. She headed for the corner of the building, where the roof was the lowest. She planted the base of her makeshift staff, pole-vaulting for a little extra height, and grabbed the edge of the roof. She felt hands scrabbling at her heels before she managed to pull them out of reach.

Sitting on the roof, she looked down at the crowd below her scrabbling uselessly at the windows and walls trying to get up to her or into the building. They didn't appear to be thinking clearly enough to be frustrated or to realize that she was out of reach. Now that she wasn't running for her life, she had time to look at them more closely. Something she noticed was that all of them looked... well, weak, physically speaking. Most of them were elderly. A few others were younger but in poor health or were very young. In short, the people most vulnerable to disease. They also seemed to be ignoring each other for some strange reason. Rabid animals will attack anything, even other rabid animals, but those below didn't seem to acknowledge the people around them as even existing.

Being somewhat safe drove home the danger she was in. She had left her makeshift staff down below, not that it would have stood up to many more strikes before it broke. She had no other weapons with her, was unlikely to find anything else up here, and the continued lack of cops following these crazy people was not a good sign. She was desperate, which sent her mind back to a conversation she had had with her grandfather before leaving for boot camp.

*****

Makata, an elderly and genteel Japanese man, knelt on a mat in the dojo behind his house. He wore traditional Japanese garb which revealed that while old, he was still in prime condition.

Across from him knelt his granddaughter, Himiko. wearing traditional garb for a student of Bushido. That it was a woman wearing them was not so traditional, but her grandfather was a great believer in adaptation as a means of preserving tradition.

In a somber voice, the old man spoke. "Miko-chan, it has been my pleasure to teach you. You truly understand the spirit of the sword. There is little I have left to teach you. However, you are going forth into danger, so there is one last lesson I would teach you. What are the stages of the warrior?"

Showing the great respect she held for her grandfather, and some curiosity about where he was going with this, she recited the answer. "First, a warrior holds the blade. The blade is little more than a tool. Second, the warrior and the blade become one. The blade becomes an extension of the warrior's body. Third, the blade disappears. The warrior becomes the blade, his body deadly no matter what is in his hands."

Makata nodded at the correct answer. "What I am going to tell you should only be used in time of great need. If you are not ready for it, it could kill you. According to legend, there is a Fourth stage, when the soul of the warrior becomes his blade. I believe that you have the potential to achieve this. I can only give you hints at how to do so, as the path is apparently different for every samurai. You have to look deep within yourself and find the heart of war, then pull it out into the world."

*****

While Himiko doubted the whole 'soul becomes your blade' thing was literal, especially since the sword of a samurai was often said to be their soul, in a situation like this, she figured that even if it was just a moment of enlightenment, it might give her an idea for how to get out of this.

Settling herself, she slowly turned her mind inwards. First she pushed away the little distractions, the feel of the sun on her skin, the sound of the wind. Then, she pushed away the bigger distraction of the crazy people who wanted to kill and eat her. After a few minutes of work, she had managed to center herself, but knew she needed to look even deeper.

Slowly she shed her mind and instincts, then shed even her center as she turned her attention to the core of her being, the part that was the source of everything else. The body was just flesh, no more her than a suit or a car. The mind, too, was just a tool, a smart animal that she taught tricks by giving the same orders over and over again. Her spirit was closer to what she needed, but even that was just an extension of who she truly was, her soul's way of manipulating her mind and body. She was far beyond thought and form and substance at this point, pared down only to the deepest truest part of herself. There she looked for the 'heart of war,' and it wasn't hard to find.

Putting what she perceived into words is an exercise in futility, as she was using senses no language she knew acknowledged to see something truly unique, her soul. She tried explaining it later as, "There was this light, and it was every bit of happiness I had ever experienced, but without the experience. It was the part of me that was the source of happiness and love, and it was beautiful. There was a form and a smell and a shape that was the part of me that reached out for experience. And there was a twisted oily thing that I knew at once as the 'heart of war,' for I had felt it before during my time in the army. This thing wanted to destroy. It revelled in challenge and the danger of life or death. It craved the destruction of my enemies, and right then, that was what I needed."

She reached without reaching for the thing that was not a thing. *You are needed.*

No response.

She tried again. *I need you,* but that was not right either.

Looking at it, she realized the truth *I am you, and you are me.* This revelation came with a sense of self-loathing that sparked the thing to attack her. She fought with it growing ever weaker, until she realized that her own self-loathing was part of the thing. She stopped fighting it and embraced it. As she did, she remembered every dark deed she had ever hidden from herself, every dark impulse, and she had to accept each one to move forward. At the same time, she saw how rarely she had given into those impulses, and she knew that even with embracing this side of herself, she would not become a monster. There was a time and a place for these feelings to be let loose, and a time for them to be restrained, but never again would she have the luxury of pretending they were not there.

Himiko returned to awareness slowly. She had a splitting headache; heck, she ached all over. Squinting her eyes at the light of the sun, she estimated she had been meditating for nearly an hour, and what did she have to show for it? Her eyes were drawn to the object that rested in her hands in answer.

She held a sword that was not quite a katana. One side was a bright silver engraved with gold runes. The Gaelic word there translated to "Slayer of Serpents," the title of Cugh Cullen after he defeated the Crumm Cruach. The other side of the blade was an ebony so dark it seemed to absorb light. Engraved on it were red kanji that translated to "One who holds back the darkness." Dangling from the handle were two knotted strands of leather tied with beads and feather. She knew without counting the patterns that it read "The many joined in one, the old made new."

*crack*

Drawn from her introspection, she looked down to realize that the madmen had been pounding on the glass long enough to crack it, meaning they would soon be inside. Some of them had apparently wandered off while she was meditating, but the fact that no help had arrived boded very ill indeed. She stood, feeling life flow through her as never before. Time seemed to almost slow down as she jumped off the roof, landing lightly, turned, and decapitated three of them in one strike. Two more strikes had the others down as well.

She walked around to the door and pushed on it, wandering if the madmen were just too stupid to try the door, but it was locked. She knocked calmly and called out, "They're gone now! I'm going to be leaving soon. You are welcome to come with me if you want my protection, or to stay here and take your chances. If any more of these guys show up, though, I expect they would get through that broken window right quick, and my home at least has walls and security guards."

She didn't know what was coming, but she knew that the first thing she needed to do was check on her family.

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Chapter 2 "Revelations of Self"

Finally Himiko approached her home. The trip back had taken vastly longer than the trip to town, burdened as she was with a growing number of followers and the need to pay a lot more attention to her surroundings than she did before she knew about the rabid people. She was tired, she had a headache, her muscles ached abominably, and she could have sworn that she had heard her bones pop a couple of times--not the joints, the bones themselves. As a result, she could be forgiven for being in a bit of a bad mood. "Oi! Goro-san! " she yelled. "Open the gate!"

Goro, the gateman, looked through the gate at the approaching crowd before exclaiming, "Hoshimitsu-san! What happened? You look terrible! Hold on, I'm opening the gate."

Once the weary group had passed through the gate, Himiko turned to Goro. "Close the gate and don't let anyone else in without checking with us. Call ahead to the house and tell them I need an emergency family meeting now, then inform security to be on high alert. Dad and Ojii-chan will have to make further decisions there." She turned to the people behind her. "Nobody gets into this compound without security checking them out, so you'll be safe for now from those lunatics. You tell him what happened." She then turned and loped painfully towards the main house.

Every step was a mild form of torture, reminding her of 'hell week' in bootcamp. She felt drained, empty, and didn't even notice when her sword vanished. Duty pushed her forward, though, that and the thought of a long hot soak. It took several minutes to reach the main house--her driveway was long. Eventually, she stumbled inside to see her mother, father, and grandmother waiting on her. They made various worried exclamations, but she refused to tell them anything until everyone had arrived.

Once her grandfather and great-uncle were there, she began, "That super-flu going around? It is a lot worse than the flu. It's like rabies; the last stage drives you violently insane. I brought with me some people I saved in town after a bunch of people at the pharmacy went mad together and started trying to eat people." She ignored the gasps of surprise and attempts to question her. "Some of them attacked me. I had to kill the first one to stop it, then more came and I had to run. They are like PCP users, they don't feel pain, they have no reason, they cannot be stopped by broken bones or dislocated joints. The only thing that seems to stop them is severing the spinal cord or crushing their brains."

She turned towards her grandfather. "I only managed to save these few through what you taught me." Holding out her hand, she willed her blade back into existence. Its response was sluggish, and she could feel how drained it left her, but it was impressive enough for her current purposes. "I have been killing for nearly 3 hours now. I am bruised, beaten, and exhausted. I can answer questions when I have had some rest. Until then, a few of the people with me are showing symptoms. I thought we should quarantine them until we learn if it affects everyone the same way. Now, I am going to take a bath, and probably a nap. Then, I'll be able to think enough to talk to you." Still ignoring them, she stood, letting her sword vanish and hobbled off to the bathroom.

In the changing room, an entrance room for Japanese style baths, she shed her clothes. Looking at the nastinees on them, she dumped them in the corner to be burned later rather than try to clean them. They had been growing increasingly uncomfortable over the last few hours anyways. She filled a bucket and dumped it over herself, then began scrubbing, starting at her feet and working her way up. Only her exhaustion allowed her to reach her hair before she noticed anything different. There was a lot more hair there than there had been this morning.

Surprised, she went over to the bathroom mirror to look at herself. Even covered with suds as she was, the differences jumped out at her. The changes to her appearance were all subtle, most so small that nobody outside of her family would notice them. That small bump on the bridge of her nose she had always hated was gone. The line of her jaw which favored her Irish and Dinei forebears blended better with her Japanese cheekbones. Her eyes had gone from a pale green to a rich and vibrant emerald. Her hair, scant inches long this morning, now flowed down to to the small of her back, and the continued itching in her scalp suggested that it was continuing to grow. Running her fingers through it, she could feel that the texture was now smoother than silk, softer than eider down, with a gentle wave that gave it extra volume and highlights of copper accentuating the darker red of her natural hair color. She rushed to rinse herself off so she could see what other changes had occurred.

Returning to the mirror, she examined the rest of her body. Again, the changes were mostly small, but the aggregate effect was enormous. Her breasts were slightly fuller than they had been before she went to basic training; they weren't large, but just big enough that she have that nagging feeling inferiority she had long felt. Her muscles were less defined, but she could feel that they were, if anything, stronger. They were just pulled tighter to her flesh, leaving a more streamlined appearance. Her body had also somewhere found a small amount of fat, just enough to soften her edges and move her up into the low end of a healthy BMI. Her thighs were thinner from the tightening of her muscles, her legs appeared a bit longer, her waist a little smaller. Turning, she saw that her ass, which she had been rather proud of, had gone from her 'buns of steel' to acquire just a little padding. Even as she watched, her hips grew slightly wider. She also noticed a lack of hair everywhere she used to shave. While in the army, she couldn't afford to do something as girly as shave her legs without enduring days of teasing, and she hadn't gotten around to doing so since getting home, yet her legs were smoother than if she had shaved that morning.

Looking at herself, she realized that she felt more like a girl than she could remember feeling since middle school, specifically since Josie Hightower... sprouted... before anyone else in their grade. It was like someone had taken a list of every little insecurity she had about her appearance and fixed them, one after the other. She had become an idealized vision of herself, and she had to wonder if this was supposed to happen as a side effect of drawing forth the heart of war, or if she had done something wrong. At least now she knew why her muscles and bones ached so much. Those aches and the itching in her scalp were beginning to fade, so she suspected that the changes were just about done.

Himiko decided that there was nothing she could do about the situation now except rest until her mind was working properly again. She climbed into the furoba, a tub large enough for six people to soak in at once, kept constantly heated, leaned back in a corner designed to let someone fall asleep without fear of slipping under the water, and let the heat draw her weariness and worries away.

All too soon, though, she felt that she needed to get out of the tub and into her bed for some proper rest. Dragging herself out of the water felt like trying to lift ten tons. Her limbs felt about as strong a soggy noodles, but as she slowly stumbled across the room, her strength slowly returned. She dried herself off and wrapped her hair in a towel to let it dry on its own, not having the energy to deal with it properly. She grabbed a robe from the changing room and stumbled out into the hall and up to her bedroom, where she collapsed on her bed and fell instantly asleep.

Coming soon, Chapter 3: Who says paranoia is a bad thing?

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