Pink Camellia-Longing for you.

Time for another time skip because nothing particularly interesting happens for a good while. You all know what that means 😄: Time for bad things to happen!! Hope y'all enjoy!

(And here's the song that inspired the idea of this series once more)

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The day dawned early and bright, the cool fog lifting to let the summer heat start making its way across the farm.

Rin rolled over in bed to tuck his face into pale collarbones. An equally pale arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him closer.

They lived somewhere in Pennsylvania, according to Amaimon and his amazing sense of direction when it came to land. They'd made a home for themselves in an old Factory where their living space was only accessible by ladder on the second floor and the first floor was used to store things and for training grounds(this was a temporary place to live in until they finished building actual houses). They'd started a farm and had several healthy patches of crops, along with three cows(one pregnant), pigs, two horses, a dog that hunted with them when they went out, and a cat that hunted rats and mice around the farm for them and liked to drop the carcasses at their feet, sometimes bringing back a bird. They'd somehow trained the cat to drop the dead rats and mice on a piece of old towel in one corner of the first floor so they could wash, skin, cut up, and cook the rodents later.

Things were going wonderfully, which was always unnerving.

The last time Rin had settled down and started making a life for him and his group, it had seemed so surreal and yet so exciting. And with just one mistake, it had all crumbled to the ground, burning throughout a night and a day, screams and sobbing and heavy smoke and the deafening collapsing of buildings drawing the dead to the commotion and ruining the home they'd made.

§~•~§~•~§

Rin's group had begun to take in survivors once they got their crop fields actually producing things they could eat. They were able to make houses old-style- small tree trunks, a mix of mud, hay, and carefully made clay tiles for the roofs. It took them a good while to make all the houses and the rooms in the houses, but they managed. They even made several outhouses by digging pits(a distance away from where everyone slept), then digging stairs, then erecting walls around the pit and making a door.

Every two weeks, either whoever had a punishment due or the ex-druggie named Scottie with no sense of smell that they'd given a home to would shovel up the waste in the outhouses and fertilize the crops with it. It was the only way they could keep such huge fields growing so well at the same time. They made use of everything they could.

With more people came more helping hands and more of a system. After a while, the strain got too much for Rin on his own, so he formed a group that would vote on decisions they needed to make and the best ways to do them. It had consisted of Rin, Ryuji, Shiemi, Izumo, Konekomeru, and a woman named Lilith. She'd been a ballerina and they'd found her ballet dancing while gracefully taking out the dead around her with a crowbar, but she'd grown up on a huge farm and knew how to operate one, how to shoot guns, how to fight with weapons like farm tools, and she was very nimble and fast. She'd helped them make the crop fields and place the outhouses, and she'd been the one to point out that human waste was still fertiliser, especially since there weren't really any toxic substances in anyone's system after the apocalypse began and they'd been forced to adhere to a diet of animal meat and whatever plants they could find that were edible.

They got big enough to take in people. Shura, Shima, and Kinzou went out to find people and brought them back after judging whether they were dangerous or not.

Their small group of houses began too look like a village, then it looked more like a very small town.

It could've been even bigger, gotten even stronger, if it weren't for Scottie finding a nice little packet of coke in some old truck they'd brought in to strip for parts and then dumping entire shovel-fulls of waste from the outhouses down their well while he was tripping on coke.

Of all the things to kill them in the Apocalypse that took place in a time of smartphones, laptops, and Ipads, Dysentery was what half of their people died from.

A disease from the fucking feudal times.

Un-fucking-believable.

That was a blow to both their morale and their farm. They had to work double time to keep it up and it strained them a lot. So much that their searchers couldn't go out to bring in more people because their farm needed constant attention.

On another hand, Izumo was the one wrangling the kids while Marshal stepped in to help her from time to time. Sachi and Tsukumo had normal classes that they might have had in school and then they'd have training(Sachi was wicked smart and already at Tsukumo's level despite being four years her junior). The quadruplets would all be in baby swings or the baby walkers they'd scavenged from homes and a run-down but surprisingly full Babies R Us storage facility.

Rin still remembered his daughter's crying face when she told him that she wanted to train with him, not Izumo or Papa.

And he remembered catching a glimpse of the same tear-streaked face, but this time filled with terror as Shiemi ran the opposite direction of Rin with her, running for the trees with Shura covering them.

Remembered the flames reflected in her wide, gold eyes as Rin was pinned down by a horde of the undead in the middle of the "street" that all the houses framed. The undead who were all the people she'd come to love talking to and playing with when they had the time.

Rin would never have given up on searching for his daughter if it weren't for the fact that he'd seen Ryuji running after Shiemi and Shura.

The day their makeshift generator blew up and drew in a herd of the dead along with killing their only engineer was the same day Ryuji had finally proposed to Rin as well.

And it was also the day Rin had lost everything but the diamond engagement ring and his ever-present Katana sword.

No matter where he went, he just couldn't find any of his people. He'd found a map of South Carolina first(the state they'd settled in), and gone everywhere he possibly could search, even when there was a herd nearby, hoping that he'd find someone, anyone he knew but most of all, his daughter and fiance.

When that failed, he scoured every. Single. Place. Until he found maps of the states surrounding South Carolina, too. Nothing. Not a single person. He even went back to all the places They'd stayed on the way to their destroyed home, went back to the house the quadruplets had been born in, went back to the farm, went back to the Apartments in New Jersey, and even Chelsea and Marshal's childhood home. He'd grabbed the rest of the family pictures off the walls and kept them just in case he found them again.

He went back as far as he could go, only to find the USS Wisconsin empty and silent aside from first his desperate calls and then his loud sobs as he collapsed in the bridge and wept over everything he'd lost.

He'd decided to settle himself in the ship and would just make trips onto land for supplies. He didn't eat as much as he probably should've. He still trained with his sword, because he still wasn't willing to die due to carelessness. If he was going to die, it would have to be by someone else's hand or old age. Or maybe sickness. Even in the middle of a hoard and fighting them off as best he could would be better than just succumbing to having nothing left.

Sometimes if he wandered the halls of the ship, he could hear Sachi's high pitched toddler voice singing or calling for Dad and Papa or giggling when someone found her and gave her a light scolding for getting lost again.

Another year had passed with Rin all alone and he'd finally stopped crying whenever he heard his family's phantom voices floating in the halls or on the bridge, or on the deck, or in the dining hall. The second year he'd been without his family didn't hurt any less.

Another half a year after that before he ever saw another person who wasn't a shambling corpse trying to eat him.

Then, that fateful day came when he saw the two men on the deck of the ship, examining the old thing that definitely hadn't been docked there at the start of the apocalypse.

The first man was very tall, taller than Ryuji had been when Rin last saw him. He wore very strange and extravagant clothing(that was completely spotless, which was strange in and of itself) and his hair was purple. Beyond the explanation of hair dye, the man's eyebrows and beard were also the exact same shade of purple.

His eyes, when Rin snuck close enough, shone a vivid poison-green. Rin would have been weirded out by the demonic-looking features if he hadn't developed those same features himself over the last two and a half years. They'd started developing when he'd still had his little village to take care of, and they'd only gotten more pronounced until a short time ago when they'd finally seemed to stop developing.

Rin's hair was already strange by itself, but now, his eyes had transitioned from a dark sapphire to electric-blue. His pupils went slitted. His ears had turned pointed like an elf and his already sharp canines had turned into fangs. It was clear that whatever mutation caused Rin to have his heat powers and his wierd features had also gotten to these two men.

The second man was much shorter than the first, maybe even a bit shorter than Rin. He also wore wierd clothes, but in the opposite way of the first man's-this guy looked like he'd picked his outfit out from a Halloween store. His hair was a bright green and styled into a spike at the crown of his head. His eyes were a piercing gold. He looked younger than the first man, but Rin couldn't tell how old either of them actually were.

When he'd stepped out with his sword and axe pressed to both of their throats, neither of them even flinched or looked surprised.

"Ah, there it is. Or rather, he." The first man spoke with an accent that Rin couldn't pinpoint beyond the fact that the man was fancy and definitely used to be rich. Up close, both men had some impressive eyebags under their eyes, yet neither seemed tired or fatigued at all.

"What the hell's that s'posed to mean?" Rin demanded, voice rough from disuse.

"Ah, there have been a few people who've come to check this ship out, but something always deters them. They say it was an angry presence, and they'd see you in the windows passing by occasionally. Because of your unique features, they assumed you were a spirit of some sort. No one comes here anymore thanks to that warning, you know." The first man spoke again.

Rin raised an eyebrow. He guessed the people thought that if zombies were walking the earth, ghosts couldn't be impossible either. And yeah, his appearance probably did make him look like a woebegone spirit-messy white hair, bright, almost glowing eyes, pale skin that almost never saw the sun anymore, and ratty, worn clothing that stayed mostly clean because he always put on a military uniform when he went out to get supplies and hunt. The cities had started looking more like jungles and animals had begun to settle in. Made hunting much easier with bigger animal populations around, though Rin had run into the occasional zoo animal and steered clear.

"There are survivors around the city, then?" He thought for a moment before deciding that his people would have checked out the ship even if there was some kind of ghost story warning them away. None of the survivors that whispered the story to each other could be his people.

"They never stay in one place-can't afford to with the wildlife coming into the cities now." The second man spoke. He sounded bored and his expression was flat.

"Are you looking for someone?" The first man eyed the diamond ring on Rin's left ring finger curiously.

Rin sighed. "Not anymore. Do you have names or should I just call you Thing 1 and Thing 2?" He answered, putting his sword and axe down. The men had no weapons on them and didn't seem to have malicious intent towards Rin or the ship. And besides, they were like him. He wondered if they had strange powers too.

"Ah, my apologies. Manners do still exist even if most of the world is dead, after all. I am Samael. I used to go by Mephisto Pheles or Johan Faust the Third, but I have need of only one name now that there's no one left in the world trying to get to me." The first man introduced himself with a bow.

Rin raised an eyebrow. Hadn't he heard that name somewhere? Mephisto Pheles....

A memory tickled the back of his mind.

××××××××

"Godammit, Pheles." Shiro muttered as he read over papers at the breakfast table. Rin was thirteen and it was one of the days where everyone just made themselves something to eat I stead of Rin cooking up a whole meal bright and early. He'd always enjoyed these kinds of mornings more. Shiro and Rin would be the oy ones at the table and they talk and laugh and just be content before the day started and something inevitably came along to ruin the day for Rin.

"Who's Pheles?" Rin decide dto be nosy. Yukio always got to know stuff from Shiro, so Rin would just be nosy.

"Ah, I used to work for him." Shiro answered hesitantly.

"Cool. Does that have anything to do with the shotgun you keep around?" Rin asked innocently while his adoptive father sputtered and almost spilled coffee down himself.

He glared at Rin after he'd wiped the coffee out of his beard. "Have you been snooping around the house to try and find things to sell again?" The man demanded. Rin shrugged, grinning. They were poor and selling things brought in enough money to help put Yukio through med school when the time came.

Shiro sighed, but ruffled the boy's hair fondly. Rin enjoyed the contact while he could get it. Shiro was always so open to Yukio, answering his questions and spending all his time helping Yukio study, getting hugs and high-fives and a comforting and on the shoulder all the time. Rin didn't get any of those very often. He wished he knew what he'd done wrong to deserve the lack of contact and affection, but he'd only ever know if Shiro decided to tell him.

"Yes, it does have to do with that. I used to work for the government and ended up protecting a man named Mephisto Pheles. He's super rich and a super bitch, too. That guy held onto for as long as he could before I finally got approval to retire peacefully after all the years of work I'd done for them so I could raise you boys." Shiro eventually explained.

Rin bit back the urge to point out that he may have adopted twins, but he was only actually raising one of them. It was a rare moment where they weren't yelling at each other, which was 99% of their interactions and even those were few and far in between.

"So why did you need to guard that guy?" Rin asked instead.

"Well, being rich means you automatically have enemies, because this world runs on money. He-"

"Is that why we're poor?" Rin interrupted.

Shiro looked pained for a moment before shaking his head. "No, Rin. We're poor because the government is still trying to convince me to come back whenever they need me and won't let me move any farther away. They won't let me get a better job than this either. We're stuck here." He paused. "Well, I'm stuck here. Yukio and you aren't. You kids can move as far away as you want. It's why I'm still trying to put Yukio through Med School even though it costs more than I make in three years."

Rin snorted into his food. At least a quarter of that money was what Rin made doing odd jobs for people or finding things around the Monastery to sell. Rin was good at swindling money from people. Not an admirable skill, but a useful one-just like very other skill he had besides cooking.

"Hm. And this Pheles guy wants you back too?" Rin guessed. Shiro rolled his eyes.

"Of course he does. I'm the only thing he can't just buy with money. Serves the bastard right, he can find someone else to put up with him." Shiro grumbled.

They finished breakfast in relative peace and Shiro went to find Yukio while Rin got dressed and hit the streets for another day of people watching and probably fighting.

××××××××

"You're the guy Shiro used to be a bodyguard for!" He blurted out suddenly. Mephisto raised an eyebrow.

"Shiro? Fujimoto?" He guessed. Rin nodded dumbly.

Mephisto threw his head back and laughed loudly.

"Ah, it really is a small world! You're one of the brats that bastard left me for!" The man snickered. The green haired man stood silently, expression unchanging.

"Ah, sorry. My companion here is Amaimon. But seriously, I can't believe I found you! And in America, of all places! I figured you'd all perished in Tokyo. How lucky this is!" Amaimon looked a bit peeved at his introduction being overshadowed by Mephisto's surprise and laughter.

"We came here when we heard the ghost stories. This new world is very boring without people in it." Amaimon cut Mephisto off in petty revenge.

"Amaimon Dear, I thought you hated people?" Mephisto recalled.

"There were too many crammed onto this planet." Amaimon agreed. "But I didn't say I wanted everyone but us dead or scarce. There aren't enough people left to make new things now. This first generation if survivors is going to have to raise the next one with instructions on how to run this world and most likely due before they can see it."

Rin stared at him in wonder. He'd thought about the future like that too, but he'd given up on that when he lost his family.

"Take me with you." He said suddenly.

Both men looked at him in mild surprise.

"I don't care if you have a permanent place to sleep or not, just....take me with you." He repeated. "Away from this ship. Please."

Mephisto stepped forward, reaching out a hand to wipe away the single tear falling down the young man's cheek. "You've nothing here. I understand." He grabbed Rin's hand in his and Amaimon with the other. "Let us go, then! Life us still a Grand Adventure, we just have to make it so!" He led them off the ship, out of the harbor, and into the depths of the city-turned wilderness.

Rin wondered how many eras he'd go through in his life whete he started anew and hoped this would be the last.

Mephisto was right, Life could still be a Grand Adventure. They just had to make it so themselves.

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And that's the end of Book 2 in the Death Is Not Final AU!

Yes, I know, I put Rin through a lot of shit. But, he is nothing if not a fighter. He won't give up, he'll keep living even if it hurts him to, just like he did in the first book after he thought Yukio had died in the beginning. He'll always choose to live for those he lost.

Things in this universe are no longer totally normal and I want y'all to be ready for some funky stuff in the third book. It's not just gonna be Zombieland normal human world stuff. It's gonna be just a little bit Black Ops II Zombies storyline stuff, but more scientific than magical.

Since I feel bad for ripping the perfect family apart, I'll tell you what happened to everyone.

Rin is now with Mephisto and Amaimon in Pennsylvania.

Shiemi, Sachi, and Ryuji are all in Arkansas and Shiemi took in a ten year old boy as her own son after his mom was eaten in front of them.

Tsukumo unfortunately died after picking and eating poison berries when Izumo was fishing in a stream and left her on her own because she'd gotten good at being independent and safe enough to do so. Izumo was taken in by a group in Illinois after stumbling aimlessly in pain and regret. She keeps Tsukumo's doll with her at all times and has never been able to fully keep herself together since she lost everything.

Shura split off from Shiemi's group to hopefully find Marshal and the quadruplets. She did find them in Missouri just in time to nurse Marshal back to health after she caught a bad case of pink eye that the kids passed to her(and thankfully healed from on their own)that ended up leaving her partially blind and unable to hunt.

Chelsea had gone out hunting when Marshal first got sick bc they needed food desperately, but her foot got caught in a rusty bear trap and she had to saw her own foot off with a hunting knife. She stumbled away only to be caught in a herd an hour later once she's bled too much and slowed down. She died leading it away from her twin and nieces and nephews. She died with no regrets and a victorious smile on her face.

Kinzou and Yukio made their way to Texas on first a motorcycle and then in a car. They found a group to join, but it was overrun not long after they joined and all they could save was a teenaged boy named Carlos and a six year old girl named Jude.

Shima went down under a hoard of walkers as a distraction so Konekomeru could get away from the carnage of what was once their home. Konekomeru didn't look back and kept traveling West. He eventually found Chelsea's corpse stumbling around in Kansas and decided to stay there since he buried her there and didn't want her grave to be left behind.

And that's that!(or is it....) And if y'all wanna ask why none of them found each other, it's because whenever someone went back to their old homes to look, they were always alternating. They never looked at the same time, bc the world is funny that way(trust me, similar situations of just missing people in the same locations has happened to me so many times and it's the most infuriating thing in the world).

I do feel really bad for Chelsea's death in particular because, as I mentioned once in Book One, Chelsea's character is based off of someone very important to me in real life. But I wanted her to have a hero's death that she earned after she's been there all this time for Marshal no matter what and Chelsea's inspiration has been there for me in my life like that too. I thought some bittersweet (and some just pure bitter) endings were in order to close out this era of Rin's life in the Zombie Apocalypse. I find that sometimes, having characters die in just a sentence or two hurts more than a whole page's worth of sad death scene. I hope you enjoyed this book and I hope to see y'all commenting when I put the next one out.

Edit 10/6/21: I'm gonna be putting out the first chapter of the third and final book of this series on Halloween as my holiday treat! Hope y'all are excited and sorry it took so long. I figured a Zombie Apocalypse story would be fitting for a Halloween Special.