Secret Operations; Blackwatch I

Tokonotsu City, Takagi Estate.

The household of the Takagi Family was a massive mansion, proudly one of the greatest spots in the whole city, surrounded by a small covered forest with a single gate towards the city. Standing in front of the gates were several goons subordinate to Souichorou Takagi.

They had the arduous tasks of differentiating between Zombies and survivors... thankfully for them, the numbers of zombies hadn't increased after the first major wave.

*PA!*

*PA!*

"They won't stop coming..." They complained constantly, having not a single moment of rest and keeping up their guards at all times... refugees kept arriving and they couldn't just turn them down in the current situation.

In the mansion and looking from the courtyard to the outside were two individuals. The owners of this mansion: Souichirou Takagi and Yuriko Takagi.

He had a sword and she had a rifle, ready to engage at a moment's notice, but for now, it wasn't needed.

"Any news?" She asked him, he had been coming back from somewhere while she kept giving orders and placing the refugees around the estate, preparing tents and giving them food. It has been just one day since the catastrophe and things weren't looking good. Thanks to her prior notice, however... they weren't lacking in resources.

"Yuriko... how did you know?" Souichirou asked with a suspicious gaze. He had been on his 'business' travel when he was contacted about Yuriko's odd expenditure... first, she spent a lot of money on food... enough food to feed a family for several winters. She also spent money on hiring builders to create a second mural around the estate, one that they didn't manage to finish before everything started... they had to kill the zombie-turned-workers yesterday afternoon.

He had believed it odd at first, but due to being on his business journey, decided to address everything once he landed back in Japan.

Several days after the... mess... of learning that his wife was screwing her nephew. This happened and suddenly all of her measurements made sense.

It was as if she knew this was going to happen all along.

Naturally, Yuriko could do nothing more than bite her lips and shut her mouth, there was not much for her to say... Brand had told them this was going to happen... she choose to believe and she choose rightly. In, fact... she reproached herself for not taking the matters seriously, if she had been a hundred per cent certain she would have hired more labourers and gotten more food.

Her efforts had been 'half-assed' as the 'magic' that Brand had shown them or even Lucy's skills weren't enough to simply make her believe that a society-shifting event was going to take place in a year.

Shamefully enough, it happened earlier and they were all caught red-handed.

"I can't explain to you, Souchirou, I merely received heads up about something that was going to take place and decided to take early measures" She couldn't give a better answer as even she didn't know better.

"And you're not going to tell me who gave you these heads up? is the mansion that you bought also related to this?" The man crossed his arms with nothing short of curiosity backing him up, the whole deal was too suspicious.

"It was Brand... and yes, it was bought for this purpose..." She didn't need to hide any of this, it served no purpose for it to be kept concealed. Souchirou's response was to merely huff in disdain.

"That brat... ever since you adopted him four years ago, I had been suspicious... turns out my worries were founded".

"What do you mean?" She frowned.

"He's screwing you isn't he?" There was pure and raw wrath in the man's voice but Yuriko did nothing but roll her eyes and ignore him... let alone that she and Brand hadn't yet sealed the deal (something she regretted), it wasn't the best moment.

"Are you still butthurt about this, Souichirou? do you think right now is the time for a jealous fit?" There were many worries in her mind as to dealing with her waste of 'ex-husband'. She was worried about Saya, about Brand, about the girls... she had spent time preparing them for a hypothetical case... and now that it has come, she thought they weren't prepared enough.

The first wave had been catastrophic... out of nowhere they just started coming and lunging on the workers of the estate... maids, and guards... they were just caught by an unexpected barrage of living dead individuals without even being aware of what was going on. A lot of blood was spilt and a lot of zombies were killed.

There were almost as many lives lost as bullets, and that was just the first day.

Seeing her clear disinterest, the man was disinclined to keep pestering this woman, at least for now.

"Tokonotsu has lost all signals... I had tried many ways but no channels work so long as we stay in the city. I have only managed to contact some of my affiliates before everything shut down" Souchirou stated solemnly.

"That doesn't make sense, these creatures shouldn't be able to take down the signal tower," Yuriko thought with consternation. In order for the communications to be lost to this degree, they'd have to either manually switch it off or crush the main communication tower to the ground directly. With an infected outbreak like this one, it doesn't make sense that the Japanese directives would decide to shut down every communication outlet, effectively sentencing everyone in Tokonotsu.

"All of this is too suspicious... supposing all of this occurred in a laboratory, it must have been Tokyo... they'd not come this far without us at least getting a headstart," He thought... there are no research laboratories that he knows of in this prefecture... the nearest ones are in Kanto, Saitama or Tokyo.

Yuriko remained silent, placing her own conjectures in which both of them surprisingly reached the same label on the top of their heads.

"You said your boy toy was investigating Gentek," He said suddenly, earning a scowl from his wife.

"Stop calling him that!"

Souichirou would stop at nothing to keep stinging with a needle, seeing her irritation he smirked, having achieved his purpose.

"Hmph! what information has he gotten?"

Yuriko scowled loudly in irritation, wondering when this man turned into a menopausal woman to keep bringing up the same matter again and again; as much as the analogy pissed her off.

"Not much... I was looking forward to seeing what information you had, Souchirou. You made contact with Alex way more than I did and we both know he worked for Gentek... back when you hadn't arrived Brand and I saw a big convoy heading towards Kanto, it could have been coming from anywhere in the south, they must have arrived at the port of Kobe"

Yuriko had been eagerly expecting what intel the hacker star Lucy had gotten on the matter... sadly, the beauty didn't have enough time to research before everything started... and with how communications are in the city, she'd likely not get a chance.

"For what I know Gentek is a biological and genetic research American company... it goes way back. I remember Alex once told me he was the head researcher of one of their projects before he resigned... he told me to not be careful about Gentek but instead... Blackwatch".

"What is Blackwatch?" Yuriko had never heard that name before; she'd make sure to give this name to Lucy for research.

"I couldn't find much with my own means.... they seem to be some sort of American secret armed forces, extremely secretive and concealed... Alex never told me much about his business except for one thing, be careful of Blackwatch, and I did so; my insider in the cabinet hasn't told me about possible interjections of this 'Blackwatch' organisation within Japan".

"... we can only wait and see what this is about, but so far... I'm putting my cards on this Gentek company"

She couldn't say much about the matter, trying to find who the culprit was when they were merely struggling to survive. Answering questions like that would have to come later.

"Do you think we can trust Saya with him?" The man suddenly inquired, bringing a smile to her face; if there was anything she was relieved about, it was this... if her daughter had been on her own, she'd not be this calm.

"I don't think she could have been in better hands".

"He better takes care of her or I will cripple him".

"Sure, like you did last time" She mocked him before turning around and heading back to the mansion to assist and talk to some of the refugees... if he could prick annoying needles, so could she.

"That was merely him being lucky!" Souchirou yelled with outrage and all he heard was his wife's amused mocking laughter, having achieved her purpose as well.

"Stop wasting time and address your people, Souichirou".