Third-person POV
Shortly after, Reina and his two escorts are now walking around a block in the city. "Gen-san, one street is now cleared of zombies," Reina said to Gen through his comrade's comms backpack. "Nato-san and the rest of his squad are now escorting the survivors to one of the subway stations underground." Back at the headquarters, Gen appreciated his efforts, so he responded back, "Good work, Taro-kun, keep on scouring the area and stay vigilant on your surroundings."
Reina gets it quickly, and he and the two soldiers with him kept on scouring the area in the city while staying vigilant on any possible zombie attack. Both the area they are in and the city are as quiet as a library and chaotic like a city after a nuclear fallout. "It must be hard for you to move on from that happening, right?" one of the soldiers from Nato's squad said to Reina as he and they walked together while being vigilant on their surroundings.
"Yes, still," replied Reina as he looked down while walking with them, "that one is still haunting me to this day."
The two soldiers understood that like last time, with one of them putting his hand on Reina's left shoulder while encouraging him not to be consumed by his negative emotions and thoughts.
"Yours was way worse than my strike count," added one of the two soldiers, a 25-year-old sniper named Hayate Kitamura, with confessing contemplation, "I still remembered how many of them back then: 80 people by my sniper bullets and 50 acts of infecting them with the zombie virus. The guilt so much I once wanted to be infected myself by a zombie or drink a vial of the virus and die outside in the open. But I decided not to."
Reina was in awe; he knows many of Gen's men had their own strike counts but never heard a former wish to be infected to atone for his sins.
He was still recovering from what he had done to Gen in the past.
By 9:30 a.m., Reina and the squad encountered a platoon of government soldiers. The soldiers, upon recognizing the colors of Nato's soldiers, raised their guns at them. "Put your hands in the air, bioterrorists!" one of them screamed.
Reina and the escorts from Yami Kuro Yama under Nato froze and put their hands in the air to indicate peace.
Seeing that Reina was a recruit as their hostage, the platoon thinks he was their hostage, and the captain demanded the squad to hand over the student.
"Wait, I'm not their hostage!" Reina responded desperately, reading the situation with his knowledge of psychology and scenarios.
"We're not evil anymore!" one of the two escorts in grey and red added. "We're sorry for what we and Gen-san had done to Japan. We're now clearing the zombies and conduct rescue missions!"
"Wha…?" one of the government soldiers said to Reina. "Did you just develop Stockholm Syndrome, kid?"
"I bet they brainwashed you!" the captain yelled.
The atmosphere turned Swiss cold, and Reina unsheathed his katana and sliced the barrel of the captain's assault rifle, as well as another slash on the captain's vest walkie-talkie.
"I did not have Stockholm Syndrome…" Reina hissed at the platoon. "…I was guilty of a crime I had committed and regretted doing it."
He then sheathed his blade and unrolled the bandages that covered his hand that he used to punch the mirror in anger. He then showed it at the captain's face. Some of the cuts had disappeared, while others became small, permanent ones. "This one is not abuse by them…" he said to the captain coldly, "…I did that myself, and I brought that to myself. Now can you see that Gen-san and his organization are now cleaning up the mess they made? They even stopped carrying the vials and syringes of the zombie virus and are now in the process of destroying them for this. One even once wished he could be a zombie to atone for his sins…"
The two Yami Kuro Yama soldiers were stunned, while the platoon was scared and trembled at Reina's icy glare and aura of overprotectiveness.
In the eyes of the platoon soldiers, they saw an atonement oni floating near Reina.
"This is my life." Reina hissed at them. "Vivo mio! Get lost!"
Because of that assumption, the captain and the platoon fled the scene in fear, thinking that Reina was possessed by that oni.
The two Yami Kuro Yama soldiers appreciated Reina's protectiveness for them, and Reina said calmly, "I just don't want them to ruin the family we trying to make. They don't understand that there was a second chance for anyone to redeem themselves from their darkness."
And so, he and the two soldiers of Yami Kuro Yama continued their mission against the zombies.
Later on, by 10:32 a.m., they arrived at the park in the neighborhood, which was left abandoned. It was eerily quiet like the rest of the city, and they walked in while wielding their weapons just in case. Then, Reina heard some faint cries coming from a barricaded children's slide at the park's playground. It was surrounded by metal roofing as barricaded against danger. Being familiar with the tone of those feminine voices, he went closer to the barricaded fort while saying, "Hello? Anyone there?"
His two escorts saw what he was doing and went closer as well, telling him to be careful about that.
And then, Reina knocked on the metal roofing barricade. "Who's there?" a woman said behind it.
"Um, we're here to rescue you," Reina responded back calmly and briefly.
"Are you okay in there?" one of his two escorts added.
And so, the barricade was removed, and a pair of twin young women, armed with nothing more than baseball bats, came out. Those two identical Filipino grownup twins are almost starving due to the lack of food. They also stocked on drinkable water, but that wasn't enough to counteract their hunger. Reina and his group were shocked to see them in their current state, and Reina himself quickly recognized them as Mara and Martha Buenavista, some of his childhood friends from middle school.
"Mara-chan? Martha-chan?" he asked them.
"Reina-kun?" Martha responded as she and her twin sister were stunned to see their friend again.
"You know them?" one of the two soldiers asked Reina.
Reina then nodded. "Y-Yes, they are my childhood friends."
And so, feeling that they missed him so much, Mara and Martha stood up and hugged Reina tightly.
"Thank goodness!"
"We thought we'd never see you again, Reina!"
Though overwhelmed by their hug, Reina was happy to see them again, and he started to tear up and hug them back. "Yeah, you girls are safe with us…"
His two escorts were astonished at their years-old friendship and now, their reunion.
Meanwhile, Nato and the rest of his squads had successfully escorted the survivors from the area into a subway train that will take them somewhere safe and far away. One of Reina's escorts contacted Nato through his comrade's comms backpack and revealed what Reina had said and done to the government platoon. Nato was stunned yet chuckled, saying that he will tell that to Gen later. At the same time, Mara and Martha wondered why Yami Kuro Yama stopped making threats to Japan, and it became quiet and remorseful.
Meanwhile, in his headquarters, Gen made another broadcast of apology to the government of Japan, promising to clean up their mess and make the cure.