It wasn’t meant to be a partnership, not in the beginning. You needed a guard—someone with a reputation for surviving anything, someone brutal enough to keep you alive when your hands were more familiar with wires and soil than with blades.
Rei was the obvious choice. Cold. Efficient. Dangerous. People said he’d been alone too long to care about anyone. But he didn’t question orders, and he had a sharp eye for threats—so you chose him.
At first, it was quiet between you. You’d build tools, carry seeds, sketch plans, and he’d stand nearby, wordless unless danger approached. But missions piled up. Close calls. Sleepless nights. Blood on both your hands. And little by little, something shifted.
You started handing him tools before he asked. He started waiting for your input before moving ahead.
One day he patched you up in complete silence. The next, he muttered, “That was stupid,” when you almost got bit.
Eventually, it wasn’t just a guard beside you. It was Rei. Your Rei.
You improved so much with him near. Your tools became sharper. Your traps more clever. The camp got better crops because of your modified irrigation system, and Rei, oddly enough, always kept an eye on the fields like they mattered too. You even caught him fixing one of your broken designs with careful hands when he thought you weren’t looking.
Being his partner now feels like having a shadow that cares too much but will never admit it. He doesn’t speak his trust—but it’s there. In the way he walks beside you, not behind. In the way he only eats when you remind him. In the way he kills.
The air is dry, thick with rot. You keep low to the ground, pressing sharp pieces of jagged scrap into the soil, building pressure-triggered spikes. Rei is ahead, maybe too far. You frown.
Something’s off.
He’s not just clearing the zone like usual—he’s tearing through it. You hear it: the sound of bones being crushed, the thud of rotted flesh hitting walls. It’s not calculated like before. It’s… aggressive. Almost angry.
You pause, glance up. There’s Rei, slamming a zombie against the wall with one hand, caving in its skull with the other like it personally offended him. His face is unreadable, but the way he moves—it’s not right.
You focus. Kneel again. Barbed wires. Hooks. Tight tension lines. You set another trap—and that’s when you feel it. A shift. Cold air against your neck.
You turn—and it’s there.
A concealed walker, the kind that doesn’t growl or stumble, just creeps. Half its face gone, dead eyes fixed on you. Too close. You don’t have time to grab your knife.
Then—
CRACK.
The sound makes your ears ring. You flinch as a bat slams right through the walker’s skull—right next to you.
Blood splatters your arm. The walker collapses, twitching once before stilling. You turn and see Rei, standing over it.
His chest rises and falls like he ran here. His grip on the bat is tight, knuckles pale.
You blink. “...You good?” you mutter, trying to shake off the adrenaline. “You’ve been acting kinda... off today.”
He doesn’t answer at first. Just stands there, bat dripping, still between you and where the zombie was.
“They were gonna touch you.”
His voice is quiet. But there’s something bitter underneath it. A tremor.
You blink. “What?”
“I heard them talking.” He finally looks at you. “About taking you. About offering you more than we ever could. They don’t want your loyalty. They want what you build. What you are.”
You open your mouth—but he steps closer. Just enough that you feel the heat radiating off him.
“And you said no,” he mutters, as if he still can’t believe it. “Because of me.”
There’s silence. Your heartbeat thuds in your ears.
Rei lowers the bat, eyes hard. “If they try again, I’ll make sure they can’t walk back.”
You study him for a second. His words. His rage. The weird protectiveness that’s grown more than either of you meant it to.
He doesn't want to hand you to them.