Bite To Death

Gamma smiles as Yuni tugs on his hand in her excitement, the little girl staring after the Namimori founder. Aria beside him is also watching with a fond look, leaning into her mother's shoulder and partially covering up the lilac armband there with five bold, black stripes.

Luche giggles at her granddaughter's bubbly glee and nods in allowance when the little girl looks up. Gamma rolls his eyes when Luche cracks at the adorableness and gives permission, but obligingly lets go of Yuni's hand.

The little girl immediately sprints off to join the crowd with the other little kids, most not even reaching the c.h.e.s.t of the teenager they surround.

Hibari Kyouya stands in the middle of the park with a wide group of children hovering around him, the DC Chairman holding a large, opaque plastic box tucked under one arm. Further away stands the parents in a loose circle, most holding cameras.

A hush goes over the crowd as Kyouya holds up an arm. As he lowers the limb slowly, the children move in synchronicity at the command as they also lower themselves to the grass in dead silence.

Kyouya scans the seated kids around him, all peering up with wide eyes. Then he also gracefully sits with crossed legs, placing the box in his l.a.p.

He opens the lid with large holes drilled into it and reaches inside. The children wait with baited breath as the Chairman slowly lifts out a tiny puppy and places it in the hands of a waiting boy beside him. Kyouya waits patiently as the boy gets a proper hold on the animal, and then dips into the box again.

Slowly, with all the care in the world, Kyouya takes out more and more potential pets, handing them around. The children have done this enough times to know that they should speak softly around the animals, and that they should always play with them gently.

The Patrollers don't only rescue people, they bring in any survivors at all. Quite often they'll find animal shelters or zoos where the staff have either escaped or have been turned into infected.

The Patrollers try their best to release most of the animals into the wild in a safe place, but most of the ones they find are domesticated or too young to release by themselves.

Every so often, an announcement will be put out to meet up at a particular park, and the rescued animals will be handed out so the children can try and beg their parents to let them keep the pet.

Further away from the circle of parents sits a few large pens, holding the bigger animals who are also circled by people looking to give them a home.

The children around Kyouya are slowly forming groups and chatting with the other kids nearby as they play with the small animals they have. A few parents are already looking resigned to taking a pet home by the end of the day.

There's a scream of shock and heads snap around to see a small leopard cub launch itself at a silver haired teenager. The other teens, with animals scattered between them, are laughing instead of helping. People ignore the incident, not worried because the teenagers all have lilac armbands with four black stripes, and one girl even has DC red.

Gamma turns back in time to see Kyouya sigh in exasperation and set the now empty plastic box to the side as he stands. He gets halfway up, but pauses on one knee when a little boy flops into his abdomen.

The fearless kid reaches out and grabs fistfuls of the black coat in a hug, golden yellow hair almost blinding in the sun as wide black eyes stare up at the Chairman with awe.

The Chairman seems to have a staring contest with the little boy. Half a minute passes and Kyouya reaches forward, scooping up the kid, and gets to his feet with the boy on his hip.

Gamma raises an eyebrow when the teenager heads over to the group of Patrollers, and without even breaking stride, gently scoops up the leopard cub and deposits in on the ground before fl.i.c.k.i.n.g the victim on the forehead.

The silver haired Patroller splutters and turns on the rest in annoyance when they snicker.

The Chairman continues on his route and ends up at one of the large pens. Kyouya vaults over the c.h.e.s.t high fence and wanders through the grazing horses until the boy in his arms points at a pure black mare whose coat shines in the sun.

Kyouya follows the unspoken demand and walks over, first swinging the boy up into the saddle before easily mounting himself. The Chairman leads the horse around in a wide circle to let the kid get a feel for it, before abruptly jumping the fence and taking off.

"Perhaps you should go and find that child's parents," comes a voice from behind, unconcerned despite the suggestion.

Gamma, Luche and Aria turn to see Fon and Tetsuya standing behind them, the martial artist having spoken to the Vice-Chairman.

Tetsuya hums noncommittally. "Let's give it an hour first."

"Good luck getting that kid away from him," Aria says, entirely genuine in wishing the DC well.

"Thank you, Ms Aria. I'll need it," Tetsuya adds.

"I'm sure you could get Reborn to help," Luche suggests. "He knows how to ride a horse."

They all turn to where Luche gestures and find the hitman sitting on the grass, engaged in a stare off with a komodo dragon, the small lizard on his hat also participating.

The rest of the Arcobaleno in Japan are scattered around, also riveted by the animals. In fact Skull is half inside the makeshift aquarium, hugging a large red octopus.

"Maybe later," Tetsuya murmurs again.

Gamma changes the subject, seeing as no parent has started panicking yet, so they have time until they have to chase down the DC leader. "So you've finished then, Fon?" he asks.

Everyone already knows the answer seeing as Gamma is Luche's second in command and she works with leading entire Patroller units, plus they can't keep anything from Aria. It was simply the first thing to come to Gamma's mind.

The Arcobaleno looks to him and smiles. "Yes, the safe zones have connected." Fon's smile grows. "We just have Tokyo now."

Tokyo, since it's so large and populated, became the last to deal with. With a population before the outbreak of approximately 38 million, even the most optimistic see it as a suicide mission to enter.

When they first reached the city, they carved a wide circ.u.mference around it and installed the pressure fences that used to be around the starting of Namimori. Then they dropped speakers around the middle that work with solar power so the noise doesn't die.

The music from the speakers attracted the majority of the infected to keep them away from the border where Namimori is. People are kept away from it as well and Patrollers set up a fixed unit around the fence as an immediate response team.

After the security was set up, Namimori spread around the large city and washed over the rest of Japan. When Fon's Berserker group met up with the main safe zone edge, it became apparent that Tokyo was the last remaining site with infected.

The speed at which Namimori moves might have been outrageous to any outsider, but Gamma has long been used to the terrifying competence in which the safe zone is run with.

Over the months since the outbreak, it's become easier to roll out Patrollers and have them clear entire cities. It was slow at first because of the small amount of volunteers and because most didn't know how to fight. Since then the job has gained a certain appeal, which calls more people to it, and the start-up training has become more streamline.

So the fact that they're almost done, three months and three weeks into the outbreak, isn't shocking at all.

"I've always wanted to visit Tokyo," Luche comments with a sweet giggle.

The people around the group of five take large steps back when the bloodl.u.s.t of Luche washes over them.