CH27 - A friend's request

[Lyon's POV]

"I... I don't think we should kill them. I mean, I understand that they tried to kill you but he's taking care of a young kid dude. They probably just got scared..." Ren answers me after I had asked for his opinion on the matter, his voice trailing off at the end as he turns his gaze at the two brothers that are now kneeling on the ground below the window.

"I know, but that doesn't change the fact that the older brother tried to kill me." I tell them without a hint of malice in my tone. My words slightly shook Ren before a glare appeared on his face. It was something I was fully expecting Chisato to share as well had she not retained the emotionless stare she's been keeping on her since we left her house. He tries to interrupt me with another one of his statements but I wasn't about to let him do just that.

"Let me fucking finish." I said to Ren, returning an even harsher glare to the one that he was giving me. This is why I hate having to handle children, they earn an air of invulnerability that if someone were to break then the opinions of other people on them would hit rock bottom. "I've already thought about it and I've decided to not kill these children, but what we do with them from this point on remains unanswered."

"I don't think we should bring them with us, we'd basically be bringing two burdens to bear on a trip that puts us right in the crosshairs of danger. We'd also need a person to watch over them so that just forces us to use up more effort and manpower." I tell Ren and Chisato, Ren's previous glaring expression had calmed down after I glared back at him earlier but his eyes were still full of pity for the children.

"But... if we leave them here then aren't we just letting them die?" Ren asks before turning his gaze back to me. I could understand where he was coming from, the consequences to my group were at the bare minimum since I managed to stop the assailant but what if one of us were to be killed by children? Though my morals may be slightly twisted, personally killing children was still something I was greatly hesitant but I'd still do it if they were to harm one of my companions.

"Look, the fact that we're going back deeper into the city is a dangerous thing already so they wouldn't be any safer with us than they already are here. We can leave the perishable food here, that should stop them from needing to go outside to loot for supplies but if they're smart then they should use those supplies while trying to get out of this city." I conceded to Ren who thanked me before apologizing for how he was acting earlier.

I wasn't planning on leaving them anything good like canned goods or instant noodles, after all, I'm not some charity foundation that goes around and gives food out because of something like a stupid hero complex. No, this was the perfect opportunity to throw away perishable food that won't last long without a fridge like those sandwiches, shortcakes, and onigiris. It'd satiate the pity Ren held towards the children while also lessening the heavy inventory of supplies we were carrying.

"Just... go take out the supplies we left in the trunk of the car, we shouldn't rely on some car lock and leave them outside for a long time and go set up some barricades once you've emptied the car. Chisato, I need you to go help Ren out if you can, we'll need to talk later." I tell my two other companions, though Ren is the only one to nod at my words while Chisato just follows Ren down the stairs.

'I should go tell Alyssa our decision." I think to myself while watching the two leave, choosing to go back to the room where we kept the two siblings after they were outside of my view. Alyssa wasn't with us while we were debating on what to do since I had tasked her earlier with watching over our two new prisoners while I was going to explain the situation to my two other companions.

I knocked on the opened bedroom door and find the two siblings shaking in fear as Alyssa had a piercing glare on her face. Bringing the two children with us was never going to become an option for me, the car barely had any more space left for two more people and I didn't want to spend my nights watching over both the entrance and our prisoners.

"We've decided, we aren't going to kill the two of you but we won't be removing your restraints for now either. We only need to stay here for the night then we'll leave the two of you alone here again." I told the two siblings whose previous outright sobbing turned to one mixed with a few attempts at bows of gratitude after they heard my words.

"Lyon, they tried to kill you." Alyssa whispers to me, her tone laced with heavy amounts of hate that were directed at the older sibling. The words "an angry Alyssa is a scary Alyssa" resonated deep within me so I began to calm her down by grabbing onto her hand and caressing it.

"Just say the word and I'll kill the older sibling." Alyssa tells me with a loud voice after winking her eyes, nonverbally telling me to play along as she made sure that the two restrained children could hear our conversation. I play along, taking on the good guy role of those cliche good cop bad cop scenes in those movies and tv shows.

"It's fine, we already have them restrained and we've already confiscated their weapons." I tell Alyssa with a calming tone as she convincingly glares at the two children with a gaze that could, metaphorically, kill someone. Did I want to kill the older sibling? I can't exactly say that a feeling of hate wasn't there but I don't think the last bits of morality I have would be capable of shouldering such an act, at least not in this case.

"I need all of you to come downstairs with me so we aren't too spread out. Alyssa, I need you to go check on whether or not the stove is operable and maybe help Ren out. I just need to ask our two prisoners a few questions." I tell everyone inside this room, Alyssa just nods to my words before leaving while I helped the two children stand up. I told them to sit their asses on the couch as we went down the stairway with the children going ahead of me so I could watch them for any sudden movements.

The two siblings did as I told them to and quietly sat on the couch while I dragged a chair from the dining table and positioned it close to the television. The tv was mounted on the wall in front of them which meant that the two children were directly in my line of sight.

"First things first, the two of you aren't the original inhabitants of this house, the other room was designed for two female children which means the two of you somehow managed to get here and it certainly isn't because of your knife skills after I watched that pathetic attempt of yours. Tell me, was it your parents or guardians that helped you get here, and are they still outside?" I "asked" the older sibling, choosing to disregard the younger sibling since I didn't want to waste my time asking a brat whose nose still had snot dripping out.

"They said that they were going to come back today but we haven't seen them ever since they left, our parents were still with us before bu-but a few people wearing black jackets and green tracksuit pants tried to get inside the house. Our parents told us to just hide here, we... don't know what happened afterward." Onishi, the older sibling, replies to me as I think about his answer.

'Hm, that might explain why the door was left open, maybe the robbers tried to go through the front door so the parents ran out through the side to take away the robber's attention?' I think to myself while being reminded of the state of the house when we got here, why would the large gate be left open too though?

"When did all of this happen and were there any specific details about those people that you could tell me?" I asked Onishi, the green tracksuit pants and the black jacket had already begun to remind me of the attire that the people who tried to enter my house were wearing but I couldn't be sure just yet. There was one thing my house's robbers and the killers of Chisato's parents all had in common, they all used a white Venn diagram-like symbol.

"This happened yesterday in the afternoon and I'm not sure but I think I saw two connected white circles on their backs, I don't remember what the thing is called and I couldn't see it for long since our mother pulled us up the stairs as soon as we saw them leave their cars." Onishi answers, accompanying it was the sound of a box falling to the ground as well as hurried footsteps coming from the direction of the kitchen.

"You... you said white circles, tell me what they look like. Please!" Chisato begs while tightly clutching onto the fabric around Onishi's collar as soon as she was close enough to him. Chisato then manages to forcefully make him stand up from the couch while the younger child just watched in horror, scared of being treated the same way.

"I don't know! All I remember is that one of them was bald and had a huge scar above his eyebrows!" Onishi weakly screams back, forcing me to stand up from my chair to stop her from accidentally choking the older sibling. I put one of my hands over her shoulder which causes her to turn her gaze at me, her eyes filled with both desperation and despair.

"Chisato, I'll handle this. I'll ask them everything we need to know and I'll tell everyone what I learn during dinner. Now, go back to helping Ren take out the boxes." I tell Chisato who reluctantly and slowly lets go of Onishi's shirt, causing him to fall back down on the couch with a light thud as he watched Chisato's retreating figure.

"Ahem, ignore her sudden outburst. We have a... complicated history with the people who seem to carry the same attire and symbolism as the ones that you had described." I cough into my hands before settling back down on the chair that I had stood up from earlier.

"Moving on, did your parents tell you when they'll come back? Just know that if you say that they aren't when they actually will, well we might end up killing them since we can't distinguish your parents any differently from robbers." I asked the two siblings since the parents might try to come back while we're still here.

"I... don't know. They said they'd come back as soon as they can but there's been no sign of them since that day." Onishi answers back, his voice becoming a whisper as he turns his gaze at the floor below him. He probably came to the same conclusion that I had, his parents are probably already dead but who knows? Maybe they're just unable to come home yet and his parents are still alive somewhere.

"I see, we'll try to peacefully resolve the situation with your parents if they do end up coming back here during our stay but that's only if they don't resist or try to kill us. You can tell us what your parents look like during dinner which is... a few hours from now." I tell the two who nod at my words while I looked at my other companions from the corner of my eye as they brought boxes of supplies from the car and into the house.

'We stopped driving way too early... we could probably reach my house if we kept on driving for a bit more but that area is probably infested with zombies due to the gunshots.' I thought to myself as I turned my gaze back to the two siblings who had stopped cowering already but were still carrying nervous expressions on their faces.

Even if the zombies that heard the gun show wandered off, they'd still probably be in the area and who knows just how many of them there actually are? Even if we were to reach my home, all we'd find would be a house that has its front door completely broken which is a house I'd rather not sleep in.

'We should be able to reach the academy by the early afternoon even if we were to avoid going anywhere near the area of my home.' I think to myself while contemplating how we'd go about our travels tomorrow. I forgot to ask Ren how much fuel we had left but I'm sure we have more than enough since the car's fuel tank was filled up earlier.

"Alyssa, fill me up on the state of the house. I'm pretty sure there are next to no supplies in the kitchen but you were the one who stayed inside their room the most earlier." I called out to Alyssa as soon as I saw her go inside the house with what is most likely the last box of supplies we had left in the trunk earlier.

"I only saw a few unopened boxes of biscuits upstairs and a bundle of water that only had half of its contents remaining. Do you want me to bring it down and compile it alongside our supplies?" Alyssa asks which caused the two siblings to look at me in fear of the possibility that I was going to take away what meager amount of supplies they had.

"You're scaring the kids Alyssa, here take this string bag with you and put all of their supplies inside." I tell Alyssa while taking out one of the empty string bags that I had taken with us back when we were still looting the club rooms on our campus. I hand her the bag before she leaves to go upstairs, our prisoners watching in both confusion and fear.

"We aren't going to take away your supplies. We're gonna be using that room and I'd rather not accidentally mix your supplies in with my own, that and I'd prefer not to sleep and wake up to hundreds of ant bites running up my entire body." I told the two siblings though my assurances didn't really make sense, it was still apparently enough to cause the two to turn their gaze away from the stairway and back to me.

"What... is going to happen to us?" Onishi asks while the little brother just sits in silence, preferring to steer clear of the conversation and to just leave it to his older brother. Has this kid not been listening to our earlier conversations or is he just asking me the same question to clear his doubts?

"As I've mentioned earlier, the two of you will stay restrained until we leave. As for your sleeping arrangements, you'll either be sleeping on the stairway, a futon if we find one, or on the floor of the living room. It all depends on where the night shift guard prefers to stay, after all, we can't just spare the manpower and keep two people awake just to guard both you and the house individually." I tell the two siblings who seemed happy enough that they weren't going to be killed at least.

Two minutes went by in silence as our conversations died down with none of us trying to start up another needless chat. It was also during that timeframe that footsteps coming from the stairway began to ring out as Alyssa came back to the living room. She was carrying the knife that Onishi had tried to stab me with earlier in one hand and the string bag that now had its bottom weighed down with its new contents in the other.

"We'll be leaving your bag of supplies over at one of those emptied cabinets, as for the knife, I'll be keeping it until we leave tomorrow. Just a bit of safety precautions since I don't think anyone here would like getting stabbed in their sleep." I tell the two siblings as I stood up from the chair, whispering to Alyssa to watch over them before I moved closer to the dining table where my two other companions and the boxes and duffle bags of supplies were.

"Give me a summary of how many days' worth of supplies we managed to get from the convenience store." I asked Ren as I sat down on one of the chairs, leaving the string bag to the side as I watched Ren silently count how much of each type of product we managed to take with us. I hadn't had enough time to count them since I was too busy but managing our stock isn't going to do it itself.

"Well, excluding just the beer, I'd say we managed to bring another 21 days' worth of water, coffee, and tea combined. As for the canned goods and instant ramen, well... it's quite complicated since they all vary in size but I think it should at least last about 14 days. Do you want me to include the onigiris, sandwiches, and shortcakes too?" Ren asks after compiling everything.

"No, don't bother. We'll be eating those for today's dinner and breakfast tomorrow before leaving the rest to the two siblings. It'll just end up spoiling anyway so it'd just be a waste if we were to bring them. It should last them about 2-4 days as long as they keep it in the fridge, 5 if they force it down their throats even after it's slightly spoiled. We'll leave them 5 days' worth of water too, that's all I'm willing to part with." I tell Ren who nods to my words as I stood up from the chair.

"Ren, you can start setting up the barricades, use the couch for the front door, and the dining table for the side door. Chisato, I need you to go look for more bags upstairs, we'll need them to carry the supplies we managed to scavenge from the convenience store." I instructed them as I gathered the supplies we were going to leave behind for the siblings.

We spent the next 30 minutes doing our individual tasks as Alyssa kept watch over the siblings, making a few glances at the fridge since she had most likely seen me putting all of the shortcakes inside of it. I only needed 5 minutes to finish my task so I spent the rest of it just helping Ren with his own as well as cleaning up the kitchen and the living room.

It was after I had left the string bag in one of the emptied cabinets did Chisato went into the kitchen with a pink and a purple bag. A steely gaze that screamed out strong determination from her eyes as she asked me for something that I felt was impossible to say no to. "Lyon, I need you to teach me how to shoot the gun."

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Fun Fact: The original draft actually had Alyssa going all yandere mode with her saying how she'd be willing to kill the older sibling if Lyon were to tell her to but I feel like it'd be way too out of character for her. I was originally planning on reasoning out the sudden change in behavior to the accumulated stress weighing down on her but I decided to replace that portion instead with them just playing the good cop bad cop stuff.

Anyways this will be the last chapter for the celebration upload schedule which means the next chapter will be on Wednesday since we'll be going back to the regular upload schedule.