Bloom and Scatter [Free! Zombie AU]

The Boss - Part 1

This couldn't actually be happening.

There was no way in hell that... that thing could possibly be...

After all, it had been years since they had last seen each other. Years. People changed. This could just be a mistake, borne out of desperation, out of despair. And the air quality was horrible, paring visibility down to mere feet. His eyes could be playing tricks on him. And given the fact that Rin and Makoto had just escaped an explosion, it would be easy, understandable even, to make a mistake; to think, in a momentary haze of confusion and fear and disorientedness, that they were seeing ghosts of their loved ones. And yet...

And yet.

"Rin," Makoto sounded lost as he stumbled on his words, "Am I... Am I dreaming? H-hallucinating? Am I still back in Manidera Temple? Because I'm seeing— I'm— I'm seeing—"

The Boss shrieked, long and shrill and hard, drowning out Makoto's words.

And then the entire horde went berserk.

They screamed back in agony as they clutched at their heads, moaning up at the sky in a morbid reflection of pack animals responding to their alpha. Rin could feel his hairs standing up on their ends, goosebumps breaking out across his skin. The sounds were discordant and ringing and sent something cold down his spine, made his toes curl and his head hurt. If he were less focused, he could tell that it was a primal, disarming noise that would have sent him to the ground. A quick glance at Makoto revealed that he was similarly affected and Rin quickly grabbed his wrist, jerking sharply to regain his attention.

"Quickly, while they're distracted...!"

They made a break for it, but the movement caught the attention of the Boss, whose head sharply jerked in their direction. It let out an angry, guttural screech, quickly redirecting the attention of the horde towards them. Shit, Rin thought as he released Makoto's hand so that he could get a better grip on his own weapons. Debris littered their path, there was barely anything to use as a projectile or a shield, and those thoughts had only just left Rin's mind when a figure leapt from the sky and launched itself towards him like a missile. He only managed to dodge, blown away by the sheer impact of the creature as it landed like a meteor smashing into the earth, knocking back unsteady zombies and loose rubble, sending a cloud of dust whipping up like a tornado.

As the dust cleared, Rin felt his throat constrict, palms sweating and his pulse quickening. The figure slowly stood to its full height, head tilting from side to side slowly, unblinking, like a serpent sizing up its prey.

The Boss.

Make no mistake about it, the creature, with a single eyeball hanging limply from the the side of its head that still had skin... It was in the way it stood, despite its limp-boned hunch belying limbs that weren't correctly aligned after having been broken. It was the hair, still the same colour and in the same style, despite the grit and muck. It was, weirdly enough, in the choice in swimwear.

From this close, it was undeniable.

"Haru," Makoto breathed from beside him, shaking like a leaf. His voice cracked, "No."

But it was.

It was Nanase Haruka.

Behind a disintegrating white jacket, Rin made out rib bones, yellow and cracking and barely holding together under leathery skin, expanding and constricting in a strange parody of breath despite the completely shrivelled up black lungs behind them. He watched in a fascinated daze at the way Haru—the Boss'—face didn't seem to change at all even though he—it—he—it was surveying them both. The way he normally would, back when he was...