Ichiro's POV
It's now 7 o'clock, and Tashio-san and I are in the basement. The strange thing is that most of us haven't eaten dinner yet, but Reina and Gen already eaten dinner an hour ago. Now they're doing this, this thing that made our hairs raise in fear.
Gen injected something into Reina's arm, and then read a note that I cannot see from a distance.
He then donned a black mouth-and-nose gas mask and pulled out an Uzi submachine gun and…, much to our shock, shot Reina with it.
Reina got hit while slumping against the wall.
Worse, he felt that it was good. What? my mind was confused.
Gen then looked at us. "This is the nighttime ritual Reina and I had kept last night. This is for his resetting of his tumultuous mind. Medicine and therapy had failed him, so I had come up with this one."
"Wait, so pain is a medicine to his guilt?" Tashio raised a question.
"Yes, unfortunately yes," Gen replied, before glancing at the note.
He then walked to one of the cages he used to hold zombies in his past experiments, and he released the sole zombie held in it: a zombie-infected SWAT soldier, complete with his assault rifle, a pistol on his shoulder, and a black balaclava and goggles.
"Go, shoot him and bite him," Gen said to it, "he needed the pain to reset his mind."
The zombie looked at Reina and approached him with his assault rifle.
Reina was not scared despite his expression, as if he was ready to endure the pain.
The zombie pulled the trigger, firing what it seemed to be half of the magazine.
Blood was everywhere, and Reina was holding on while coughing blood to the floor.
And then, the zombie took off his mask, lunged at him, and bit his shoulder.
Reina looked relieved as the warm zombie blood and ooze was now in his veins.
"Keep this a secret," Gen said to me and Tashio.
Tashio was willing: if this is what causes Reina to be feeling better, then he agreed as long as it is controlled and safe. "Yes," he said to Gen, "no one should know this, if they do, they don't know the mercy of this."
I was willing too, taking it seriously as a vow.
And then, Reina looked at the zombie SWAT soldier, who was putting on his mask and stroking his forehead.
"I am here because I was ordered to burn the darkness within you…" he spoke in a raspy voice.
"Sí…" Reina replied with a nod while puking still.
After that, the zombie returned to its cage, and Gen closed it while promising a meal for him.