[1051] Zombie Side Story: Hyuuga Twins
This one is also Askerian's fault, who asked for a drabble with Hiashi & Hizashi. The prompt was "I refuse." Said prompt didn't actually make it into this, but it's 1,200+ words long already, and I liked this stopping point.
As usual, this is in all its un-beta'd glory and comments are most certainly welcome. ♥
Original drabble by askerian
Act IAct II
Scene I, Sasuke
Scene I, Naruto
Scene II, Shikamaru
Scene II, Sasuke
Scene III, Neji
Scene III, Tenten
Scene IV, Tenten
Scene IV, Sakura
Scene V, Lee
If they hadn’t needed to finish tallying the first quarter profit/loss report for Monday’s executive meeting, Hiashi and Hizashi would have been at their respective homes the Saturday afternoon the world ended.
The first clue that something had gone wrong was the wail of sirens. Hiashi automatically glanced out of his fifth-floor office window in time to see a police car rush down the road and off into the distance. But idle curiosity couldn’t keep his attention for long-there were reports to review and vendors that were late on payments, and he and his brother had already been here through the night in the hopes that they could actually get some sleep on Sunday.
Hizashi came in five minutes later, a thick stack of printouts in his hands. “Have you seen this?” he asked, handing it over. “Kodachi is pushing back against the new terms. He wants back on the Net30 instead of the Net60.”
Hiashi stifled a groan and scanned through the papers. His twin had already taken the liberty of calculating what the effects would be for their company on both scenarios, and the one Kodashi was pushing for was not exactly ideal. “Let’s look at our options for a new supplier then,” he finally said, running a hand over his face. He could hear more sirens now. “One that will take the Net60 if Kodachi doesn’t cave.”
When he looked up, Hizashi had moved from his desk to the floor-to-ceiling window and was peering outside. He was frowning deeply. “There’s something going on outside.” The words were punctuated with the sound of several more emergency vehicles arriving.
As Hiashi got up to get a better view, he saw that there was indeed something going on. The tiny policemen on the streets below were getting out of their cars and quickly directing what little traffic was in the area away from where that very first police car had disappeared. While he watched, two fire trucks pushed their way through the milling cars and then vanished down the road. Through the nearby towers of office buildings, a thin but steadily growing plume of black smoke was rising.
“Something’s burning,” Hiashi found himself saying. He realized his hands were pressed against the glass and quickly let them fall, faintly irritated at the smudgy handprints he left behind.
Hizashi took a few steps to the side, squinting out into city from a different angle. “I think it’s Otogakure Medical Research,” he said after a few moments.
Twenty minutes, six police cars, four ambulances, and three fire trucks later, the first teams of riot police arrived. They spilled out of the boxy trucks, swarming like army ants around the now-barricaded street below. Normal police officers were keeping an ever-growing crowd of bystanders away from whatever disaster was out of sight.
“I don’t think we’re going to get any work done here today,” Hizashi said. Down below the sirens and lights were still going, a cacophony of barely controlled chaos. As they watched, the riot police went through the barricade and marched off toward the smoke. A few police officers were breaking off from crowd-watching duty and started toward nearby businesses.
This was more than just a fire.
Hiashi headed for his computer. “What news trucks are down there?” he asked his brother. He shook the computer mouse to turn the computer monitor back on.
“Two, five, and nine.”
Hiashi typed in his password and pulled up his browser. He quickly opened three tabs and directed them toward the corresponding new channels. Two of the sites had only breaking news banners that directed visitors to pathetically small articles, but channel five had a live video feed. He clicked play.
“--cuating nearby businesses,” the professionally-dressed anchorwoman was saying earnestly into her microphone. Her next words were made unintelligible as the video player tried and momentarily failed to buffer correctly. “--n’t have anything concrete. We do know that a fire has broken out in the building and that there is some sort of disturbance. No one has been able to reach OMR’s president for commentary, so far, but we do know this facility is not normally open on the weekends.”
Hizashi pulled himself away from the window and moved around to peer over Hiashi’s shoulder at the computer screen.
“Again, the Department of Public Transportation is shutting down the nearby streets and setting up detours. Police are in the midst of evacuating the local busin--”
The buffer failed again--channel five did not have a robust server apparently--and Hiashi sighed in resignation. “Find a good stopping point in the next fifteen minutes. We’ll just have to come back tomorrow to finish up. We only have a few hours left.”
“At least six,” Hizashi countered, but he didn’t argue with the decision before he slipped out of the office.
Hiashi minimized the browser, letting the newsanchor drone on in the background when the video stream allowed. After a moment’s though he picked up his cell phone and sent his wife a quick text to let her know that he would be heading home soon. She was supposed to be taking Hinata dress shopping and had offered to bring her husband and brother-in-law food if they were still there by dinner time.
The buffer caught back up while Hiashi was in the midst of writing himself a check list for tomorrow.
“--would you estimate?”
A young man’s voice answered, surprisingly mellow for all frantic background noise. “A little over thirty, I think.”
Hiashi pulled up the browser again. Beside the anchorwoman was a young man in his twenties wearing, of all things, a formerly white lab coat streaked with soot and grime. There was a fine dusting of debris in his light gray hair and one of the lenses in his glasses was cracked.
“Do you know what happened?”
“No idea. I’m just a student techn--” The video cut out again, and Hiashi nearly ground his teeth in frustration. He closed his eyes briefly, told himself that everything would be fine in the morning, and went back to his list.
A few minutes later a new commotion started up outside. He saved his unfinished report and glanced out the window. To his surprise, saw what the gawkers below had already spotted: a handful of people staggering down the street and toward the barricade.
Hiashi pressed his face up against the glass, straining to glean more detail from the scene. But it was what he didn’t see that disturbed him. The police had been carefully evacuating buildings in semi-orderly packs. There were no firefighters or EMTs or riot police showing these stragglers where to go. Surely the emergency officials weren’t just letting people wander around in a dangerous area like that, unattended and unsupervised.
“Are you ready to go?” It was his twin’s voice behind him.
“Yes,” he said, slowly pulling himself away from the window and the growing noise outside. “Let me just shut down, and we can get out of here.” He went back to his computer and shut down the accounting program.
Just before he closed the browser, the video feed came back. The camera was in motion, trying to get a better angle of the anchorwoman as she headed closer to the wooden barriers the police had erected. “--be survivors?” she asked. She gestured at whomever was holding the camera, and suddenly the view focused on a grimy man, slack-jawed with shock as he stumbled toward an approaching officer. A half dozen other figures were not far behind him.
And in the next heartbeat, Hiashi watched a man’s throat get ripped out on live television.
For those of you that still care, Act II Scene V has close to 2,000 words already and should be completed sometime in the near future. I'm also very close to giving this series a name.
As usual, this is in all its un-beta'd glory and comments are most certainly welcome. ♥
Original drabble by askerian
Act IAct II
Scene I, Sasuke
Scene I, Naruto
Scene II, Shikamaru
Scene II, Sasuke
Scene III, Neji
Scene III, Tenten
Scene IV, Tenten
Scene IV, Sakura
Scene V, Lee
If they hadn’t needed to finish tallying the first quarter profit/loss report for Monday’s executive meeting, Hiashi and Hizashi would have been at their respective homes the Saturday afternoon the world ended.
The first clue that something had gone wrong was the wail of sirens. Hiashi automatically glanced out of his fifth-floor office window in time to see a police car rush down the road and off into the distance. But idle curiosity couldn’t keep his attention for long-there were reports to review and vendors that were late on payments, and he and his brother had already been here through the night in the hopes that they could actually get some sleep on Sunday.
Hizashi came in five minutes later, a thick stack of printouts in his hands. “Have you seen this?” he asked, handing it over. “Kodachi is pushing back against the new terms. He wants back on the Net30 instead of the Net60.”
Hiashi stifled a groan and scanned through the papers. His twin had already taken the liberty of calculating what the effects would be for their company on both scenarios, and the one Kodashi was pushing for was not exactly ideal. “Let’s look at our options for a new supplier then,” he finally said, running a hand over his face. He could hear more sirens now. “One that will take the Net60 if Kodachi doesn’t cave.”
When he looked up, Hizashi had moved from his desk to the floor-to-ceiling window and was peering outside. He was frowning deeply. “There’s something going on outside.” The words were punctuated with the sound of several more emergency vehicles arriving.
As Hiashi got up to get a better view, he saw that there was indeed something going on. The tiny policemen on the streets below were getting out of their cars and quickly directing what little traffic was in the area away from where that very first police car had disappeared. While he watched, two fire trucks pushed their way through the milling cars and then vanished down the road. Through the nearby towers of office buildings, a thin but steadily growing plume of black smoke was rising.
“Something’s burning,” Hiashi found himself saying. He realized his hands were pressed against the glass and quickly let them fall, faintly irritated at the smudgy handprints he left behind.
Hizashi took a few steps to the side, squinting out into city from a different angle. “I think it’s Otogakure Medical Research,” he said after a few moments.
Twenty minutes, six police cars, four ambulances, and three fire trucks later, the first teams of riot police arrived. They spilled out of the boxy trucks, swarming like army ants around the now-barricaded street below. Normal police officers were keeping an ever-growing crowd of bystanders away from whatever disaster was out of sight.
“I don’t think we’re going to get any work done here today,” Hizashi said. Down below the sirens and lights were still going, a cacophony of barely controlled chaos. As they watched, the riot police went through the barricade and marched off toward the smoke. A few police officers were breaking off from crowd-watching duty and started toward nearby businesses.
This was more than just a fire.
Hiashi headed for his computer. “What news trucks are down there?” he asked his brother. He shook the computer mouse to turn the computer monitor back on.
“Two, five, and nine.”
Hiashi typed in his password and pulled up his browser. He quickly opened three tabs and directed them toward the corresponding new channels. Two of the sites had only breaking news banners that directed visitors to pathetically small articles, but channel five had a live video feed. He clicked play.
“--cuating nearby businesses,” the professionally-dressed anchorwoman was saying earnestly into her microphone. Her next words were made unintelligible as the video player tried and momentarily failed to buffer correctly. “--n’t have anything concrete. We do know that a fire has broken out in the building and that there is some sort of disturbance. No one has been able to reach OMR’s president for commentary, so far, but we do know this facility is not normally open on the weekends.”
Hizashi pulled himself away from the window and moved around to peer over Hiashi’s shoulder at the computer screen.
“Again, the Department of Public Transportation is shutting down the nearby streets and setting up detours. Police are in the midst of evacuating the local busin--”
The buffer failed again--channel five did not have a robust server apparently--and Hiashi sighed in resignation. “Find a good stopping point in the next fifteen minutes. We’ll just have to come back tomorrow to finish up. We only have a few hours left.”
“At least six,” Hizashi countered, but he didn’t argue with the decision before he slipped out of the office.
Hiashi minimized the browser, letting the newsanchor drone on in the background when the video stream allowed. After a moment’s though he picked up his cell phone and sent his wife a quick text to let her know that he would be heading home soon. She was supposed to be taking Hinata dress shopping and had offered to bring her husband and brother-in-law food if they were still there by dinner time.
The buffer caught back up while Hiashi was in the midst of writing himself a check list for tomorrow.
“--would you estimate?”
A young man’s voice answered, surprisingly mellow for all frantic background noise. “A little over thirty, I think.”
Hiashi pulled up the browser again. Beside the anchorwoman was a young man in his twenties wearing, of all things, a formerly white lab coat streaked with soot and grime. There was a fine dusting of debris in his light gray hair and one of the lenses in his glasses was cracked.
“Do you know what happened?”
“No idea. I’m just a student techn--” The video cut out again, and Hiashi nearly ground his teeth in frustration. He closed his eyes briefly, told himself that everything would be fine in the morning, and went back to his list.
A few minutes later a new commotion started up outside. He saved his unfinished report and glanced out the window. To his surprise, saw what the gawkers below had already spotted: a handful of people staggering down the street and toward the barricade.
Hiashi pressed his face up against the glass, straining to glean more detail from the scene. But it was what he didn’t see that disturbed him. The police had been carefully evacuating buildings in semi-orderly packs. There were no firefighters or EMTs or riot police showing these stragglers where to go. Surely the emergency officials weren’t just letting people wander around in a dangerous area like that, unattended and unsupervised.
“Are you ready to go?” It was his twin’s voice behind him.
“Yes,” he said, slowly pulling himself away from the window and the growing noise outside. “Let me just shut down, and we can get out of here.” He went back to his computer and shut down the accounting program.
Just before he closed the browser, the video feed came back. The camera was in motion, trying to get a better angle of the anchorwoman as she headed closer to the wooden barriers the police had erected. “--be survivors?” she asked. She gestured at whomever was holding the camera, and suddenly the view focused on a grimy man, slack-jawed with shock as he stumbled toward an approaching officer. A half dozen other figures were not far behind him.
And in the next heartbeat, Hiashi watched a man’s throat get ripped out on live television.
For those of you that still care, Act II Scene V has close to 2,000 words already and should be completed sometime in the near future. I'm also very close to giving this series a name.