A lot of people's faults
Interestingly enough, even though I've been writing Yuugao for a couple years now I've never, ever written her in her canon gender: female. Here's a first attempt. I'd totally recommend reading the other three fics listed, though maybe you should read mine first since I'm sure theirs are better...
Title: Long Day's Night
Fandom: au!Naruto
Characters: Yuugao, Sai, Tenzou
Word Count: 2838
Rating: PG13 Has some mention of gore and violence.
Summary: The Zombie Apocalypse has started and Yuugao's been stuck on her dad's roof for five days. Alone.
Author's Notes: The fault of three other amazing writers: lexkixass (fic), phoenix_melody (fic) and askerian (fic). Not completely finished, but mostly is done. It's uh, mostly-unbeta'd, so suggestions are welcome in that area. As well as praise, of course.
She considered coming down from the roof when the deer walked past instead of running. But the sun had nearly set, so she hunkered down for another night of inhuman howls. The screams of any of her neighbors were long past. Everyone else had left or been turned. Or died.
Deep down Yuugao knew that her father's insistence on living in the middle of the forest was both a blessing and a curse and she would have ignored such thoughts, but all she had was time. Time enough to sit quietly, watch for any passing zombies, and to think. The attic of the house was still untouched by the taint, but despite the stench that drifted up from around the house from the decaying corpses, it felt cleaner to be on the roof than hunkered in the attic. At least here she could watch the stars at night.
The driveway was dirt and so was the road for a good five clicks - if she was to get anywhere but the woods it would mean at least two days walking. She would be foolish to travel too lightly and that extra baggage would slow her down. Besides, she would rather take it slow and survive than rush and get caught unawares by any of them. Her preparations to leave were nearly complete - she would have been ready two days after they arrived but there were too many for her to kill with so little available ammunition. Yuugao still cursed herself for wasting two arrows on them; though she might be able to retrieve them if she felt safe standing on the ground for more than two minutes at a time.
It was in those moments that she really, really wished he hadn't opened the door.
It had been their neighbor - Michelle looked like she had the worst fever in history and Dad had never turned away any sickness. At least she had bitten him sooner than later. If she'd waited much longer it was likely they would have gotten her to the back bedroom and it would have been almost impossible to barricade her in. Besides, that had been Mom's room. Dad hadn't slept in there for years - it still smelled like her, he said.
Yuugao could actually spot Michelle's bloated body if she had wanted to, but there wasn't much to see. The last time she had looked, five other zombies had fallen on top of her in their own final deaths. Dad's body was still on the back porch, where he'd stepped out and told her to let him die human. In retrospect, it had been a little too easy to put the bullet through his head.
She hugged her knees to herself - what good was all this Marine training he'd given her if all she could do was sit here and wait for salvation? She couldn't run by herself and Yuugao had no idea where to even go. Her mother's family she didn't know and they would have been too soft to survive something like this without dumb luck. And Dad's family was in another state and a couple thousand miles away. And there was certainly no cell reception here. Just how Dad liked it.
Yuugao went stiff as she heard a sound that she had not heard in days - an engine. That meant people - live people. From the sound of it, they were still a good two clicks away. And while the house had been planned to be out of sight, she would definitely get spotted. Her dyed-purple hair always caught people's eyes. Her ratty Marine baseball cap - one of Dad's old ones - sat next to her and would eliminate most of it from view, but she was still an easy target if these were marauders.
Would people be marauding already?
Better to watch from a distance and assess a threat than let it walk right up to your doorstep and guess wrong.
She straightened and gathered her things in a record minute and thirty. She was off the roof and sprinting to the tree house in the backyard in another minute and up the tree and in another place of relative safety in another minute thirty. The long rope-ladder was now safely up with her, too. No one could get up this high without it. Dad had built this when she was much younger and it had stood the test of times - she had learned to hunt deer from up here. Mom had felt comforted that at least there were walls that would keep her only child from falling from such a tall height.
As if falling was all that scary of a prospect any more.
Yuugao blinked away the memory and while she felt the warm trickles on her cheeks, she paid them no heed. She set Dad's old sniper rifle on the child-height windowsill and got into a comfortable crouch. The car would be coming by soon, it was getting louder and louder. Any vehicle traveling on the main road was visible from the roof and the tree house, but the latter had more height and she was glad of it as a muddy silver truck came into view. She thought it looked familiar, but silver on a truck wasn't exactly patented.
There was a faint howl, but she expected that. Being quiet had gotten several packs of zombies to pass by and in comparison to the usual noise in the forest the truck was practically blaring a dinner bell. She kept the gun sighted and felt her heart start to race as it turned down her driveway. It had to be marauders then -- what sane person would still be in a house surrounded by piles of zombie bodies?
Her, of course. But she had little choice. She was alone and too far to get anywhere safely in just daylight. Not that cities would exactly be safe either, since there were so many more people... The truck stopped and she was glad for the cover that the tree house gave her. Two men stepped out, and were wise enough to not turn on flashlights; there was still plenty of light to see by. They talked quietly to each other and wore thick leather coats and carried a pistol on their hips. One carried an axe and the other a rifle - but it was their stance and strides that gave them away. They were alert and light on their feet, their every movement was aware and conserved energy.
They moved like Dad did.
One turned to look to the left and she recognized him - Tenzou. He had been in Dad's platoon years ago and visited every few years on his leave. She had no idea what rank he was or what he'd been up to for the last five years, but it was more of a relief than she had considered to just see another living person. Let alone one that she knew and trusted.
Or felt like she should trust.
Had this whole event - this insanity - led her father's friend to drag along someone else to come maraud her father's house? Surely he knew that there were stockpiles of supplies. Guns, dry food storage, ammunition, various survival supplies. Had she stayed here too long? The awful possibilities continued to flash through her mind and then she heard him call out.
"Uzuki! If you're alive, we're here to get you out of this hell hole!"
She inched closer to the window and felt her chest get so tight that she didn't know if she could breathe - he sounded concerned, worried under all of that same gruffness. Were they really here to rescue her and Dad?
"Don't forget his daughter, Captain," the other man said and she remembered him. Sai... Sai something. She'd never bothered to remember his last name, since he was usually too busy hitting on anything remotely female.
Of course he would be the one concerned about her.
A memory came to her unbidden and she curled into herself, gasping for air. A calm stroll through the woods with her father, Tenzou, Sai, and the one man she'd refused to think of for all this time. Hayate. She had not heard from him in weeks - he was out on business. And then the zombies came and all hell broke loose.
"Uzuki!" Tenzou called out again. "You've got another minute and then we're hiding out for the night in your attic." He lowered his voice, but she could still hear him grumble. "At least that place would be safe, knowing the old coot."
Sai shifted his stance and frowned. "I think they were closer than we feared, Captain. I'm hearing them from the east."
And west, Yuugao thought, forcing air into her lungs and her fingers to unclench. She was in control, she was safe, and these men would not hurt her. There were so few people left that it would make little sense for men of their caliber to sink to such a level. Right?
Howls seemed to erupt from the entire forest and the hair on the back of her neck dutifully rose. It didn't matter that she'd been hearing such sounds most every night for what felt like an eternity. Sunrises counted it as just five days, but Yuugao was frozen in place. If she sprinted she could make it to the house, but Sai and Tenzou were already doing that and it was doubtful she'd be able to carry in all of her supplies.
She had always been so quick to react, so spot-on with her reflexes, but all she could do was sit there and watch the two men hide in her house and the zombies swarm in. There were more than before; how was that possible? All the different stages of decomposition was reflected in the crowd and her mind idly thought back to the anatomy book she had studied dutifully to please her father. She could spot the place to hit a man from every possible angle and knew how to do it to stun, to kill, and to maim.
But she still sat there in the tree house, shivering and deathly silent. And now she was trapped. All night. Yuugao accepted her fate for the time being - there was no way she was going to call out to Tenzou or Sai now. They would only feel obligated to beat a path to her when it would undoubtedly be a suicide mission and if she drew any of the men's attention she would certainly attract attention from the undead. And while it was bad enough having them surrounding her house and trying to climb the mounds or banging on the doors and boarded over windows, Yuugao didn't want that kind of attention at the tree house.
It was going to be another long, miserable night.
~
Dawn came slowly and while a large portion of zombies wandered away, a number still stayed. She had been watching them sway in place as the sun rose and actually jumped when she heard the blast of a rifle. Tenzou was standing on the roof - very close to where she'd sat for days on end - and taking pot shots at the dozen or so that were standing in clumps around the house. Sai climbed out of the hidden doorway and held out a cup of coffee for his "captain". Her stomach growled at the sight and she winced. Why hadn't she actually made herself something edible to eat in all of those days? Her last real meal had been with Dad, right before they realized that the bite he'd received would turn him into one of them.
And it had only been a measly grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
Oh, what she would give for even that now.
She watched the two converse and had to admit that they certainly knew what they were doing. At least once she teamed up with them she could sleep or walk on the ground and know someone was watching her back. They discussed how the gas tanks were running out and that if "old Uzuki" hadn't made it, then there was little doubt that Hatake had either. Sai brought her up again, wondering if they should do a more thorough search of the house to make sure that her remains were among the bodies around the house.
"It wouldn't do to leave a damsel in distress," Sai took another sip of his steaming coffee. "She's probably scared out of her mind or the walking undead. Either way, she needs saving."
Tenzou scoffed. "You just want to find a woman alive. Start thinking with your head."
"I am," Sai smirked.
She could see Tenzou roll his eyes and that sold her - if he could do that, then she could trust him. Yuugao had no idea why that little action sold her, but it did. And she had never ignored the "gut" she'd inherited from her father.
"I'll check on the truck," Tenzou said and handed his cup over to Sai. "We should cut back on our caffeine. If we rely on it too much we'll be dead in the water once it runs out."
"Yes sir," he frowned and finished off his own mug, glancing at Tenzou's as if to see if there was anything left.
She wanted to show herself now, but not to Sai first if she could help it. Tenzou was the more level-headed of the two and certainly less horny. How could anyone be thinking about their libido at a time like this? Her gut wrenched up and she refused to think back on her own brown-haired boy, somewhere in Montana.
It didn't take Tenzou long to get down to the ground floor of the house and then to the front porch. He took a moment to survey his surroundings and then headed for the truck, a few hundred feet back from the house. It bore several scratch marks from curious zombies - had they scented human contact and been so hungry they couldn't resist? - and in the morning daylight she could see that there were a plethora of such marks on the truck.
He crouched next to each tire and examined it in detail - that made sense to her as she watched him through the sniper scope. The tires were the most vulnerable part of the vehicle. One too strong-scratch and they had a flat. Sai was also keeping an eye on Tenzou, but he did not have the advantage that she did. It was because of her superior altitude and sniper scope that she could see the zombie walking steadily towards Tenzou. He was sticking to shadows and likely was invisible to any view that Sai had. And so it was that she set her scope, adjusted for wind and distance, and waited for the thing to get into a clearing. She got her chance a few seconds later and the shot was silenced, like any sensible sniper rifle. But both men had jumped and stared at the zombie brought down without a head.
Both men shared a glance and Sai shook his head, turning to look towards the tree house. Well, she was outed now. She straightened from her crouch and stepped out onto the porch of the tree house, still toting the heavy rifle.
"What took you so long?"
Sai was gaping at her and looked down at Tenzou - who was watching his soldier for more information.
"Yuugao?" Tenzou called out.
"One in the same," she scanned the forest that she could see before looking to Sai. "Stop staring."
A slow grin came onto his face and he instead took his time looking her up and down. "You've certainly grown up."
Yuugao watched Tenzou make his way around the house, presumably to see her as well. She couldn't stop the flinch as he came around to the back and she saw the bones of her father's hand gleaming. Something had been eating him.
Tenzou's words pulled her out of her thoughts. "That was a good shot," he smiled up at her. "Why weren't you in the attic? It seemed plenty secure last night."
She shrugged. "Your car spooked me up here. Dad's been dead six days now."
"Not a bad back up location," Sai pursed his lips. "You got a way to come back down?"
She shot him a glare and he visibly stiffened. "A rope ladder. You went inside and there was the rush last night before I could join you two. Got any more coffee?"
"Sure," Tenzou nodded. "We even found some of your dad's dehydrated eggs if you can stomach them."
"Anything beats jerky and dried fruit," she pulled together her pack again, shoving the rope ladder off the ledge and letting it tumble all the way down before starting down herself.
Title: Long Day's Night
Fandom: au!Naruto
Characters: Yuugao, Sai, Tenzou
Word Count: 2838
Rating: PG13 Has some mention of gore and violence.
Summary: The Zombie Apocalypse has started and Yuugao's been stuck on her dad's roof for five days. Alone.
Author's Notes: The fault of three other amazing writers: lexkixass (fic), phoenix_melody (fic) and askerian (fic). Not completely finished, but mostly is done. It's uh, mostly-unbeta'd, so suggestions are welcome in that area. As well as praise, of course.
She considered coming down from the roof when the deer walked past instead of running. But the sun had nearly set, so she hunkered down for another night of inhuman howls. The screams of any of her neighbors were long past. Everyone else had left or been turned. Or died.
Deep down Yuugao knew that her father's insistence on living in the middle of the forest was both a blessing and a curse and she would have ignored such thoughts, but all she had was time. Time enough to sit quietly, watch for any passing zombies, and to think. The attic of the house was still untouched by the taint, but despite the stench that drifted up from around the house from the decaying corpses, it felt cleaner to be on the roof than hunkered in the attic. At least here she could watch the stars at night.
The driveway was dirt and so was the road for a good five clicks - if she was to get anywhere but the woods it would mean at least two days walking. She would be foolish to travel too lightly and that extra baggage would slow her down. Besides, she would rather take it slow and survive than rush and get caught unawares by any of them. Her preparations to leave were nearly complete - she would have been ready two days after they arrived but there were too many for her to kill with so little available ammunition. Yuugao still cursed herself for wasting two arrows on them; though she might be able to retrieve them if she felt safe standing on the ground for more than two minutes at a time.
It was in those moments that she really, really wished he hadn't opened the door.
It had been their neighbor - Michelle looked like she had the worst fever in history and Dad had never turned away any sickness. At least she had bitten him sooner than later. If she'd waited much longer it was likely they would have gotten her to the back bedroom and it would have been almost impossible to barricade her in. Besides, that had been Mom's room. Dad hadn't slept in there for years - it still smelled like her, he said.
Yuugao could actually spot Michelle's bloated body if she had wanted to, but there wasn't much to see. The last time she had looked, five other zombies had fallen on top of her in their own final deaths. Dad's body was still on the back porch, where he'd stepped out and told her to let him die human. In retrospect, it had been a little too easy to put the bullet through his head.
She hugged her knees to herself - what good was all this Marine training he'd given her if all she could do was sit here and wait for salvation? She couldn't run by herself and Yuugao had no idea where to even go. Her mother's family she didn't know and they would have been too soft to survive something like this without dumb luck. And Dad's family was in another state and a couple thousand miles away. And there was certainly no cell reception here. Just how Dad liked it.
Yuugao went stiff as she heard a sound that she had not heard in days - an engine. That meant people - live people. From the sound of it, they were still a good two clicks away. And while the house had been planned to be out of sight, she would definitely get spotted. Her dyed-purple hair always caught people's eyes. Her ratty Marine baseball cap - one of Dad's old ones - sat next to her and would eliminate most of it from view, but she was still an easy target if these were marauders.
Would people be marauding already?
Better to watch from a distance and assess a threat than let it walk right up to your doorstep and guess wrong.
She straightened and gathered her things in a record minute and thirty. She was off the roof and sprinting to the tree house in the backyard in another minute and up the tree and in another place of relative safety in another minute thirty. The long rope-ladder was now safely up with her, too. No one could get up this high without it. Dad had built this when she was much younger and it had stood the test of times - she had learned to hunt deer from up here. Mom had felt comforted that at least there were walls that would keep her only child from falling from such a tall height.
As if falling was all that scary of a prospect any more.
Yuugao blinked away the memory and while she felt the warm trickles on her cheeks, she paid them no heed. She set Dad's old sniper rifle on the child-height windowsill and got into a comfortable crouch. The car would be coming by soon, it was getting louder and louder. Any vehicle traveling on the main road was visible from the roof and the tree house, but the latter had more height and she was glad of it as a muddy silver truck came into view. She thought it looked familiar, but silver on a truck wasn't exactly patented.
There was a faint howl, but she expected that. Being quiet had gotten several packs of zombies to pass by and in comparison to the usual noise in the forest the truck was practically blaring a dinner bell. She kept the gun sighted and felt her heart start to race as it turned down her driveway. It had to be marauders then -- what sane person would still be in a house surrounded by piles of zombie bodies?
Her, of course. But she had little choice. She was alone and too far to get anywhere safely in just daylight. Not that cities would exactly be safe either, since there were so many more people... The truck stopped and she was glad for the cover that the tree house gave her. Two men stepped out, and were wise enough to not turn on flashlights; there was still plenty of light to see by. They talked quietly to each other and wore thick leather coats and carried a pistol on their hips. One carried an axe and the other a rifle - but it was their stance and strides that gave them away. They were alert and light on their feet, their every movement was aware and conserved energy.
They moved like Dad did.
One turned to look to the left and she recognized him - Tenzou. He had been in Dad's platoon years ago and visited every few years on his leave. She had no idea what rank he was or what he'd been up to for the last five years, but it was more of a relief than she had considered to just see another living person. Let alone one that she knew and trusted.
Or felt like she should trust.
Had this whole event - this insanity - led her father's friend to drag along someone else to come maraud her father's house? Surely he knew that there were stockpiles of supplies. Guns, dry food storage, ammunition, various survival supplies. Had she stayed here too long? The awful possibilities continued to flash through her mind and then she heard him call out.
"Uzuki! If you're alive, we're here to get you out of this hell hole!"
She inched closer to the window and felt her chest get so tight that she didn't know if she could breathe - he sounded concerned, worried under all of that same gruffness. Were they really here to rescue her and Dad?
"Don't forget his daughter, Captain," the other man said and she remembered him. Sai... Sai something. She'd never bothered to remember his last name, since he was usually too busy hitting on anything remotely female.
Of course he would be the one concerned about her.
A memory came to her unbidden and she curled into herself, gasping for air. A calm stroll through the woods with her father, Tenzou, Sai, and the one man she'd refused to think of for all this time. Hayate. She had not heard from him in weeks - he was out on business. And then the zombies came and all hell broke loose.
"Uzuki!" Tenzou called out again. "You've got another minute and then we're hiding out for the night in your attic." He lowered his voice, but she could still hear him grumble. "At least that place would be safe, knowing the old coot."
Sai shifted his stance and frowned. "I think they were closer than we feared, Captain. I'm hearing them from the east."
And west, Yuugao thought, forcing air into her lungs and her fingers to unclench. She was in control, she was safe, and these men would not hurt her. There were so few people left that it would make little sense for men of their caliber to sink to such a level. Right?
Howls seemed to erupt from the entire forest and the hair on the back of her neck dutifully rose. It didn't matter that she'd been hearing such sounds most every night for what felt like an eternity. Sunrises counted it as just five days, but Yuugao was frozen in place. If she sprinted she could make it to the house, but Sai and Tenzou were already doing that and it was doubtful she'd be able to carry in all of her supplies.
She had always been so quick to react, so spot-on with her reflexes, but all she could do was sit there and watch the two men hide in her house and the zombies swarm in. There were more than before; how was that possible? All the different stages of decomposition was reflected in the crowd and her mind idly thought back to the anatomy book she had studied dutifully to please her father. She could spot the place to hit a man from every possible angle and knew how to do it to stun, to kill, and to maim.
But she still sat there in the tree house, shivering and deathly silent. And now she was trapped. All night. Yuugao accepted her fate for the time being - there was no way she was going to call out to Tenzou or Sai now. They would only feel obligated to beat a path to her when it would undoubtedly be a suicide mission and if she drew any of the men's attention she would certainly attract attention from the undead. And while it was bad enough having them surrounding her house and trying to climb the mounds or banging on the doors and boarded over windows, Yuugao didn't want that kind of attention at the tree house.
It was going to be another long, miserable night.
~
Dawn came slowly and while a large portion of zombies wandered away, a number still stayed. She had been watching them sway in place as the sun rose and actually jumped when she heard the blast of a rifle. Tenzou was standing on the roof - very close to where she'd sat for days on end - and taking pot shots at the dozen or so that were standing in clumps around the house. Sai climbed out of the hidden doorway and held out a cup of coffee for his "captain". Her stomach growled at the sight and she winced. Why hadn't she actually made herself something edible to eat in all of those days? Her last real meal had been with Dad, right before they realized that the bite he'd received would turn him into one of them.
And it had only been a measly grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
Oh, what she would give for even that now.
She watched the two converse and had to admit that they certainly knew what they were doing. At least once she teamed up with them she could sleep or walk on the ground and know someone was watching her back. They discussed how the gas tanks were running out and that if "old Uzuki" hadn't made it, then there was little doubt that Hatake had either. Sai brought her up again, wondering if they should do a more thorough search of the house to make sure that her remains were among the bodies around the house.
"It wouldn't do to leave a damsel in distress," Sai took another sip of his steaming coffee. "She's probably scared out of her mind or the walking undead. Either way, she needs saving."
Tenzou scoffed. "You just want to find a woman alive. Start thinking with your head."
"I am," Sai smirked.
She could see Tenzou roll his eyes and that sold her - if he could do that, then she could trust him. Yuugao had no idea why that little action sold her, but it did. And she had never ignored the "gut" she'd inherited from her father.
"I'll check on the truck," Tenzou said and handed his cup over to Sai. "We should cut back on our caffeine. If we rely on it too much we'll be dead in the water once it runs out."
"Yes sir," he frowned and finished off his own mug, glancing at Tenzou's as if to see if there was anything left.
She wanted to show herself now, but not to Sai first if she could help it. Tenzou was the more level-headed of the two and certainly less horny. How could anyone be thinking about their libido at a time like this? Her gut wrenched up and she refused to think back on her own brown-haired boy, somewhere in Montana.
It didn't take Tenzou long to get down to the ground floor of the house and then to the front porch. He took a moment to survey his surroundings and then headed for the truck, a few hundred feet back from the house. It bore several scratch marks from curious zombies - had they scented human contact and been so hungry they couldn't resist? - and in the morning daylight she could see that there were a plethora of such marks on the truck.
He crouched next to each tire and examined it in detail - that made sense to her as she watched him through the sniper scope. The tires were the most vulnerable part of the vehicle. One too strong-scratch and they had a flat. Sai was also keeping an eye on Tenzou, but he did not have the advantage that she did. It was because of her superior altitude and sniper scope that she could see the zombie walking steadily towards Tenzou. He was sticking to shadows and likely was invisible to any view that Sai had. And so it was that she set her scope, adjusted for wind and distance, and waited for the thing to get into a clearing. She got her chance a few seconds later and the shot was silenced, like any sensible sniper rifle. But both men had jumped and stared at the zombie brought down without a head.
Both men shared a glance and Sai shook his head, turning to look towards the tree house. Well, she was outed now. She straightened from her crouch and stepped out onto the porch of the tree house, still toting the heavy rifle.
"What took you so long?"
Sai was gaping at her and looked down at Tenzou - who was watching his soldier for more information.
"Yuugao?" Tenzou called out.
"One in the same," she scanned the forest that she could see before looking to Sai. "Stop staring."
A slow grin came onto his face and he instead took his time looking her up and down. "You've certainly grown up."
Yuugao watched Tenzou make his way around the house, presumably to see her as well. She couldn't stop the flinch as he came around to the back and she saw the bones of her father's hand gleaming. Something had been eating him.
Tenzou's words pulled her out of her thoughts. "That was a good shot," he smiled up at her. "Why weren't you in the attic? It seemed plenty secure last night."
She shrugged. "Your car spooked me up here. Dad's been dead six days now."
"Not a bad back up location," Sai pursed his lips. "You got a way to come back down?"
She shot him a glare and he visibly stiffened. "A rope ladder. You went inside and there was the rush last night before I could join you two. Got any more coffee?"
"Sure," Tenzou nodded. "We even found some of your dad's dehydrated eggs if you can stomach them."
"Anything beats jerky and dried fruit," she pulled together her pack again, shoving the rope ladder off the ledge and letting it tumble all the way down before starting down herself.