Chapter Text
He turned around in his bed, moving around in it clearly panicking, with sounds of sobs and small cries as confirmation about the kind of dream he was having. However, no one was in his room to witness it, which he preferred. As much as the world was awfully lonely and cold, he found the thought of depending on others terrifying. Not because he did not want to disappoint them, nor because he was scared how’d they feel if he ended up dead somehow. No. His only reason to keep the people around him at a safe distance was simply that he couldn’t afford experiencing the loss of another loved one again. He didn’t want to add more nightmares to the collection he already had. Though new nightmares always somehow found their way to him anyways, but then again, how could they not. Surviving the event of the end of the world, and now having to live in the new world, wasn’t exactly a walk on a damn rainbow. No, far from it.
A door slams open in the distance, but he couldn’t really tell if it happened in his dream at first. He can hear someone call out ‘little one’, before the brightness of lights getting switched on forces him to open his eyes. “What the hell…”He whispers in a disturbed voice that both trembled and showed annoyance at the same time.
“Sorry, little one. But you said to wake you when the first team got back. They’re back, and kinda waiting to report, so get your cute butt dressed and up there.” Hiro chuckled and patted him on the head.
Shaking his head, the sleepy one somehow managed to get out of the bed, starting to dress himself. “I told you to stop calling me that. My name is not ‘little one’..” Eiki hissed at him.
Hiro, one of the few people he would admit being one of his friends, just smiled and shrugged. “It’s cute, besides, I like calling you something you wouldn’t accept anyone else calling you.”
“I won’t accept you calling me it either, moron.. Use my name.”
“Alright, Ei-chan.”
“Drop the ‘–chan’!” Eiki snapped with a look at Hiro as if the guy brutally offended him. “Call me Eiki, you big rock. Just Eiki.”
Hiro laughed on his way out. “You’re cute when you’re all snappy and cranky. Anyways, the team is still back and waiting, so I’ll let you to it. Hurry up, little one!”
Before Eiki could snap back at him, the door was closed and he was left alone again. Displeased by the annoyance, he finished dressing himself, in the clothes that as torn and worn out as they were, still did its job. He jumped in his shoes, and started to head out the door, quickly grapping a hairband on the way.
Quickly running his small slim fingers through his long grey hair, trying to sort out the massive filters in it, he walks down the corridor towards the elevator. Their base was located underground, in a facility that had belonged to the government before the world as they knew it ended that is. There was no such thing as a government anymore.
Everything above ground was nothing more than ruins and dangers lurking everywhere. How they found the base was entirely by luck really, though some survivors seem to think Eiki had known of it’s existence all along. But truth is his group simply randomly stumbled across it in the middle of nowhere. The city they came from was roughly two days away on foot, but since the base already had vehicles on the upper level, getting back and forth to the city wasn’t really an issue, as long as they were still able to find gas for them on the raids to the city. But he knew it would become a problem in the long run. Sooner or later the city would run out of supplies for them, not only gas, but also all the other more critical resources that kept them alive. Lucky for him, he didn’t need to worry about that right now. But if the raids they sent out there for supplies kept bringing new survivors back them, he’d have to worry sooner that he’d like. Not that they didn’t have the room for more, the base had plenty room to shelter many more. It was only the feeding and caring for them that worried him, no matter how useful they might be.
One cannot deny getting more doctors or fighters is very useful, and everyone here had their assignments or jobs.
“Eiki-san!” A gently voice called behind him, as he tied hos long hair up in a quick high ponytail. He looked back and gave off a short smile. It was their researcher, or scientist, or what else you might label him as.
“Michi.. I thought you were already on level A. It’s not like you being late when a team returns home.” The small man, yet still taller than him, shook his head with a sigh.
“I know, I just had to go through some papers before I could leave the lab. Hayate is more like a monkey than a man, really. I just can’t make any sense of his horrible handwriting”
Moving towards the elevator the young captain chuckled softly. “Ah well, remind me to thank him later, now that we can walk together. Makes me seem less late as well.”
The younger researcher smiled brightly as he nodded, stepping into the elevator with him. “I’m surprised you’re welcoming them back at all. I thought you were asleep, it’s only been two hours since you went to rest.”
Shaking his head, Eiki looked at the buttons, pressing the one to level A. “A captain has his duties, and I’m not the kind of captain who likes to sleep through them.”
Michi looked at him with the type of worrying look in his eyes, that Eiki simply couldn’t handle from anyone. “Stop looking at me like that. I can literally hear what you’re thinking.”
“You need to take better care of yourself.”
“And you need to stop sounding like Midori. I have enough with one over-worried doctor stalking me.”
Michi laughed over the complaint and shrugged. “She’s right, you know. You’re barely sleeping, you’re losing weight, and that hair of yours is a godforsaken mess. Seriously, I’m surprised you aren’t the root of the children’s nightmares yet.”
Raising an eyebrow the young captain smirked at him. “Please, we all know they run away screaming by the sight of you and those needles you love to give us shots with. They got no time to have nightmares about my hair, they’re too busy having them about you.”
“Touché.” The younger one hummed. “But seriously-“ He started as the doors opened again. “We have no use of a dead captain, captain. We need you alive.”
Sighing mildly annoyed, Eiki followed him out and headed towards the waiting team of raiders.
“I am giving you an order, get rid of that. Why did you even bring it back here in the first place?” The vice-captain were already there, obviously, since Eiki was the one who was late. A clear anger was in his voice, as he scolded the raiders, that quickly grouped up against the older man defending themselves with loud yellings.
“What is going on here?” Eiki asked with a raised voice, commanding them to calm down, and they quickly turned their eyes his way.
“The idiots brought something other than what they were asked for back, that’s what’s going on.” The vice-captain answered him.
“Is that so? That’s weird, I thought I said only to bring back the listed things. But I can’t really keep them for grapping a few things they might want themselves, Youta. They are raiders, not our personal shoppers.”
“It’s not exactly a souvenir they decided to bring here, captain.” The tall man growled. Eiki gave him a warning look, and the older man stepped back with a disapproving sigh.
Eiki then turned his head towards the commander of the team and gave of a gentle smile, while Michi rushed to the vice-captain to calm him down. “So.. Sora. What is it exactly that you brought back, that seems to have upset my vice so much, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Still clearly offended, the blonde nodded towards the backseat of the vehicle. Eiki looked inside the window to the backseat and blinked in disbelieve. “What the hell is that?”
“That would be an infant, cap.”
“Yeah I can damn well see what it is, Sora. But where in earth did you find it?”
The blonde shrugged and leaned his back against the truck.
“We found him in the mall.” A weaker voice said, belonging to the newest member of the team, and also the youngest. Eiki turned his head towards him with a curious look in his eyes.
“I see.. And the mother? He’s practically a newborn, so she must have been around, no?”
The smaller boy shook his head. “We believe the mom was, uhm.. We think she abandoned him there and took off..”
The young captain rubbed his neck and looked up at the ceiling of the caves entrance. “Well then.. We don’t have anything to care for an infant here, but-“ He didn’t even get to finish his thought before the vice-captain interrupted.
“You shouldn’t have brought him here. Of course the mother abandoned him, do you have any idea how hard it’ll be to keep him alive? It’s hard enough to keep children we already have alive, and they’re all over toddler age, not to mention no one wants to take any real parenting responsibility over them. It’s too much of a risk.”
The young captain quickly starred at him with a harsh tone in his voice. “Alright, that’s enough! First of all, the children happens to be our future. We can’t rebuild the world without them, so for all I care, they are even more important than any of us. And second, don’t you dare blaming them for their humanity, you should cherish that they even have anything of that left.”
Youta immediately fell silent and looked away, while Sora and the raiders started shoving some weak relieved smiles aimed at each other.
“With that said-“ The captain continued. “He isn’t entirely wrong. Taking care of that boy will be difficult.” He looked at Sora again considering their options.
Sora smiled nervously and sighed. “Cap.. We already got the most necessary things. Diapers, infant formulas, and some clothes.. Only for a month, but..”
The captain nodded with a warm smile. “Alright then. I guess your team will be in charge of making sure we have enough of that to care for him from now on then, since it was you who brought him here. But before I make that little order of mine permanent-“ He turned his head towards Michi, only catching a glimpse of the vice-captain stomping his way towards the elevator. “I want you and Midori to check up and test him through for anything possible. I don’t want to take him in, just to have him suddenly turned into a nightwalker on us. I want him isolated till it’s confirmed that he’s clear and nothing more but an infant.” He looked back at Sora reassuring and patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll figure out what to do once he’s cleared, and that’s my decision.”
Sora nodded weakly and gave his team a calm look, as Michi with that bright smile of his reached in and got the baby out of the truck. “Your word is my command, captain. Come on then, little one, let’s go see the nice doctor.”
“No thank you, I’m not done talking with the commander yet.” Eiki responded automatically, which to his surprise, made the commander and the rest of the team chuckle.
“I was talking to the baby, Eiki-san. I see Hiro’s nickname finally grew on you, hm?” He sang while disappearing into the elevator.
“Urgh.. I really just did that, huh..” Trying really hard not to, the commander and his raiders finally bursts into laughter.
“Nothing wrong with that, cap. It is uhm.. “ clearly unable to actually come up with something to end that sentence, the commander just laughed and Eiki crossed his arms over his chest, anything but amused.
“Alright, that’s enough, haha. Other than the baby, is there anything else I should know about your trip?”
Still trying to get the laughter under control, the commander rubbed his dirty face in his hands, as if that would help him calm down again, while the raiders did their best to accomplish the same. “Erh.. Yes, cap. Sorry.” He took a deep breath and looked the captain in the eyes. “I’m not sure, but it seems like the nightwalkers has somehow evolved. We fell across a few in the mall when we ripped the food store. They’re faster now. And stronger, I think..”
The captain didn’t like those news one bit. If they were changing, they needed to know about exactly how as soon as possible, if they were to keep being able to protect themselves against them. “Alright..”
He stroked his bangs away from his face, and Sora bit his lip as the captains black eyes showed a worrying concern.“We had no troubles taking them down though. But one of them threw a freezer after Ren. I don’t recall them being able to do that before.”
Eiki scratch his cheek, a habit he’d grown whenever he was uncertain or nervous of something.“They weren’t.. But if they’re changing, small things like more strength or speed might not be the only way.” He looked at Sora who suddenly seemed frightened by the thought. “I need you to go to Michi and tell him what you saw, Sora. If they are changing, we need Michi on it straight away.”
The commander nodded obediently, and Eiki gave him one of his reassuring smile again, before he started to walk towards the elevator. “I’m gonna send a team up here to unload the supplies, you guys are dismissed. The only order I have for you now is the get your asses into a shower, you seriously stink. All of you.” He looked back at Sora and the rest of the guys smiling widely, as he stepped into the elevator ad pressed the button. “Good job with the baby. It’s nice to know you’re all still good guys, you know.”
The doors closed and the elevator steadily started to move down.