Hiroki opened his eyes slowly. For a second he wondered if all the events that had happened earlier were all dreams.

He looked to the nearest window and saw the darkness, he thought that he simply fell asleep after a day of hard training while skipping school and had just woken up now, after dreaming about fighting a giant Zombie and gaining superpowers.

"RAGHHHH!!" but a distant roar of primal oppression sounded out from afar, jolting the sleepy teen awake, his now yellow eyes filled with worry and vigilance.

Hiroki wasn't as scared of the roars as he was before, both his new mindset and personal power made sure of that, but it didn't stop his cells from telling him that he was much weaker than whatever just let out that roar.

So, he instantly shot up and looked around the room, the roar setting him on edge.

He saw Daichi leaning into the sofa with his hands tightly holding a Katana. He had a blanket draped over his lower body but Hiroki could tell it was originally over his entire body, Daichi's movements while asleep must have knocked it off.

Hiroki looked on the sofa behind Daichi and saw that Ino was gone, instantly his face paled as he thought the worst. Suddenly he heard a sound coming from the Kitchen in the next room. Hiroki knew that it could just be Ino doing something in there, but it could also be a Zombie. Who knew? He'd been asleep after all. Plus, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Hiroki admonished himself as he slowly crept down the hallway to the kitchen. Along the way, he slipped his combat knife into his hand once again getting into a proper stance to handle any problem that came up.

He slowly crept up to the door and saw from the light coming from under the door. As he was so close, he could hear whispering going on between two people behind the door, with an occasional third person chipping in. This caused Hiroki to keep up his tensed form as he cracked the door open a little.

What he saw inside caused him to break out in a bright smile as he burst into the room.

Inside, three very stunned girls looked at the tall Hiroki burst in with a smile on his face. One of the girls looked like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, this was Ino. The two other girls instantly froze as they looked at Hiroki, a brief sadness flashing past their eyes before one of them threw herself at Hiroki.

The girl who threw herself at Hiroki was his older sister by 2 years, Kurosawa Mai. Like Hiroki, she'd been trained in Martial Arts since she was young but she didn't enjoy fighting as Hiroki did, so she instead focused her martial arts training around health and then as auxiliary support to her gymnastics.

After finishing high school with brilliant grades, she went to college and that's where she was currently still at.

The big thing both her and Hiroki both had in common was that they were both confident, strong-willed and charismatic when they needed to be; they were true siblings.

But Hiroki was shocked as he looked at his usually confident sister as she sobbed into his chest, clutching at his worn out t-shirt. Instantly he tried to console her, "Onee-chan, what's wrong?!" Hiroki instantly brought Mai's head up to look into his eyes.

In her eyes, Hiroki saw sadness. Pure, unadulterated sadness.

Instantly, Hiroki realized who was with her. She was his older sisters best friend, Fujimoto Keiko. Both her and his sister had been inseparable ever since they met when they were kids. They had the same interests - gymnastics and dance - and they just seemed to click together personality wise.

So over the years, Hiroki and the rest of his family had seen a lot of her over the years. So much so that Hiroki's older brother even started going out with her when they both left Highschool--

Instantly, Hiroki looked around and even used his keen senses to check if he could sense anyone else in the house. But when he couldn't, his head instantly darted back to looking between Mai and Keiko, "Where's Kentaro-nii?" Hiroki's voice was strained as he put on a puzzled smile.

The possibility had already crossed his mind but he'd chosen to ignore it out of a pure rejection of even the notion of it happening, but now that it was being thrust at his face, he could do nothing but question where his older brother was.

His older brother, Kurosawa Kentaro. A genius, child-prodigy, gifted. Many words could be used to describe Kentaro but Hiroki had a favorite word, or more accurately, words to describe his brother, "The best big brother he could ask for" was how he'd put it.

His older brother would help him with homework, console him when he lost fights when he was younger and much more emotional. His brother was what allowed him to develop such a confident personality and ultimately become the person he was today - purely through his brother's affection and care could he have stayed as strong as he was when up against the odds when he fought that Brutish Zombie.

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Keiko's frozen body, upon hearing Hiroki's question, started to shake and she fell to her knees, her arms wrapped at her sides and clutching them. His sister started sobbing even louder as she pushed herself into Hiroki's chest, causing pain to shoot out from there.

But Hiroki didn't mind it, at least it distracted him from the thoughts he was currently thinking.

Ino rushed over to Keiko and gently wrapped her in a calming embrace before looking at Hiroki, telling him to do the same with his sister. She didn't say this of course, but Hiroki could see it in her eyes.

So he did what she said and wrapped his usually strong sister in a tight embrace.

Minutes passed and Hiroki became more and more restless, more and more impatient but finally, his sister stopped crying and slowly pushed herself away from his now-soaked chest. Hiroki guided her over to the dining table and Ino did the same thing with Keiko.

As they all sat down, Hiroki looked at the two girls with red-rimmed eyes and dark thoughts once again flooded into his head. But before he could break down and blurt out all his questions, his sister spoke.

"Kentaro...is dead..." the news froze Hiroki solid, his heart even skipping a beat when he heard what she said, "He...died...saving us from those things in the neighborhood," Hiroki's frozen body started to slowly shake but Mai was oblivious to this as she carried on, "We were out at the Mall, shopping for his and Keiko's vacation and then, the change happened," she looked into Hiroki's blank eyes, "You'll probably know what I mean when I say we saw screens telling us how we were 'Awakened', right?"

Hiroki dumbly nodded while Mai carried on, "We both changed, becoming whatever being 'Awakened' means but before we could come to terms with that, those monsters appeared," a look of hatred flashed over her face as she gnashed her teeth, "Three of those big bastards, like the one you killed earlier, appeared in the mall and started massacring people and Kentaro, that idiot had to help!"

As his sister continued to explain what happened, Hiroki slowly became slightly detached as he thought about all the times his brother and he had shared moments over the years. Their chats, the times they went out on trips together, the time Kentaro teased Hiroki about picking up girls with their good-looks - All of it.

Suddenly, Hiroki came back to his senses and his yellow irises constricted and his pupils became slits as his mouth curved into a smile that seemed entirely fueled by rage and disbelief, "How dare they...!" he suddenly stood up and charged toward the door for the house.

Barging through it, Hiroki looked upon the horde that was situated in front of his house, his eyes glittered with hatred and his smile twisted further showing animalistic brutality unusual even in the most savage of animals. His prominent canines seemed even sharper and menacing than usual as he unconsciously let out a low, guttural growl.

"You fucking pests...You took my brother from me..." Hiroki's face warped from the utter wrath he was feeling, "HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!" with this roar of utter despise, Hiroki shot off toward the horde and drew his combat knife.

The front line of the Zombies noticed Hiroki as soon as he barged through the door and started their shuffling to him then, so this front line were the ones he first collided with. What unlucky bastards.

It was a slaughter.

Hiroki's combat knife sliced through rotten flesh and bone with sickening efficiency. Any attack aimed at him was easily dodged and punished with death.

Hiroki's speed, strength, and coordination were eerily inhuman, every action he made was so efficient and full of killing intent that it seemed unfair that there were only a few zombies after him.

But it could be seen that his stamina was running out as his breaths were incredibly heavy, the quick and strong movements taking more stamina than you'd think. But this didn't stop Hiroki's assault at all. In fact, it only seemed to fuel it.

Hiroki, in his rage, pushed further and further into the horde, cutting Zombie heads off left, right and center.

But his Combat Knife couldn't handle the stress after cutting through dozens of necks and snapped in half. The Zombies bones seemed oddly enhanced so cutting through them was much harder on the knife than cutting through a normal Human's neck.

Seeing this, Hiroki simply threw the broken blade away and lifted up both his hands.

Despite the fact that doing what he was about to do was very stupid, Hiroki did it anyway, his emotions making him get carried away.

Hiroki's hands both suddenly turned black as his nails morphed into blade-like extremities. Weirdly enough, unlike before where his hand looked a bit rough, this time his hands were completely smooth-looking.

But Hiroki didn't notice this as his vision went red thinking about more memories with his brother and how he'd never get to make any more memories with him.

Hiroki felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest and diced up in front of him, and the only way to stop the pain was to eradicate the Zombies in front of him.

So, that's exactly what he did, Hiroki charged at the nearest Zombie and with his hand in the shape of a knife, punctured straight through the Zombies throat and grabbed its neck before tugging at it and lifting the undead creature up.

Hiroki spun around and using the Zombie as a bludgeon, slammed a Zombie's head into the ground, killing it and the one he was holding at the same time in an explosion of gore.

Everyone was at the door watching this, even Daichi, and other than Mai and Ino, all of them had stupefied expressions on their faces as they looked at the Hiroki's unusual hands and the claws upon them.

Hiroki felt his heartache suddenly, not from emotional pain bit purely from physical pain. He collapsed to one knee while pushing whatever Zombie was near him away into the bumbling horde behind them.

Hiroki's hands turned back to normal and he clutched at his chest with his hand.

Seeing him like this, Mai instantly charged at him with even more speed than he had and appeared next to him near instantly. She looked at him with a look that was equal parts understanding and also anger before she grabbed his collar and shot back over to the door.

After hearing his sister herd everyone back inside, Hiroki's heart pain intensified and he passed out.

Hiroki went to sleep, vowing to avenge his brother and resolved himself to the fact that he would head to the Mall as soon as he could. He just needed more power first.

Luckily, that opportunity would soon arrive. For all of them.