My Vampire Older Sister and Zombie Little Sister

Part 1

I was trying to use my screwdriver a silently as possible when I heard light footsteps climbing the stairs.

“Hwuh? What’re you doing up already, Onii-chan? Mornin’.”

“Are you kidding me?”

It was my Zombie little sister instead of my Vampire older sister and that could only mean one thing.

I groaned, looked out the window, and cursed when I saw the morning sun shining through the gap in the curtain.

I had spent the whole night fighting with the breaker located above the dressing room’s door. I made sure to warn Ayumi who was wearing a baggy T-shirt and reaching for the nearby doorknob while rubbing her eyes.

“The toilet isn’t working.”

“What!?”

“The only way to flush it is to fill a bucket in the bath. …Damn, and it isn’t just our house. There’s a bigger power outage going on.”

“Which is what I told you ages ago,” said Maxwell.

Shut up. I need to find a way to recharge my phone, you know?

Maxwell was actually located in the harbor container yard and the industrial power supply used there was still up since it used a different transformer and power line route than our home line, so I had thought the problem was somewhere in our house, like the meter or the switchboard.

“With the power, water, and gas supply, the wave of infrastructure privatization has taken several different forms. Some of those include mid-level facilities that piggyback off of the general power grid.”

“Talk about inefficient.”

“Using the same line prevents them from taking advantage of the unique traits possible through privatization. If their fees remain the same, they will only gain a slight advantage and they will inevitably lose enough customers to die a slow death. I imagine they will attempt various strange price-cutting measures such as buying up solar power to take advantage of the ecological tax cuts and burning city gas to produce power on site.”

Based on this, the outage would be one of the many branching power lines or transformer substations instead of the major power station.

The general households were all without power, but the factories and water purification plant supported by a separate industrial power supply were still up and running. But some of the newer infrastructure facilities used the household power supply, so those would already be down.

“Dammit, mom. I was wondering what that odd pamphlet from the phone company was about.”

My barefoot little sister in a T-shirt was frozen in front of the door since she was struggling to accept this was really happening, but I had to ignore her.

“Rather than the entire city’s power going out, it is more like 40% of it went out and the rest has grown unstable as it attempts to pick up the slack,” said Maxwell. “That means it is not a complete blackout, so you can rest easy there. The contents of the refrigerator should keep as long as you only open and close the door when absolutely necessary.”

“You expect me to boot up my desktop when the power could go out at any moment? The risk is the same.”

I was pretty sure my stepmom had bought an emergency radio and TV with a hand crank generator attached, but where had those gotten off to?

“If I can’t find them, I could always modify the dynamo for my bike’s headlight. This phone is 5 volts and how many milliamperes?”

“You are wasting your time,” said Maxwell. “You should have just had some hot milk to drink and climbed into bed.”

“Humans aren’t that simple.”

I would have had an easier time getting to sleep if I had just polished off a large cup of instant noodles. It was like there was this huge weight in my gut.

There had just been too many injured people. I felt like I had spent all night switching back and forth between applying pressure to wounds and washing my hands.

Almost everyone gathered in that downtown area had only been zapped, but 20 or 30 of them had hit by the “guillotines” of microplastics hardened on the building walls.

I really didn’t want to think back on what I had seen there.

Those were the people who had been vaguely aware they were being lied to but still used the online rumors as an excuse to go nuts. If that riot hadn’t been stopped, who knows what would’ve happened to the employees at Huge Camera. So could you call this their just deserts? Unfortunately, I couldn’t accept that. Those were the people from my hometown. If you could continue sneering at them after seeing them holding their bloody shoulders or legs and crying like a child, then you were a real piece of work.

In the current situation, there was no guarantee an ambulance would arrive if we called for one.

It had helped that the rioters were bonded together by a misguided sense of victimhood. It probably helped that the trains were stopped because a lot of people there had come by car. All we had been able to do was wash the injured’s wounds, tie the wounds tight with scraps, and shove them into the back of relatively large vans and SUVs. Hopefully they had arrived at the hospital safely…and I could only pray the hospital itself was still functioning.

To be honest, I really didn’t want to go to school after that.

I didn’t have it in me.

“No power, gas, or water. They won’t even be able to bake bread. We also have to do something about the contents of the fridge.”

The only thing that kept me going through my ordinary morning routine was the Class Rep. Checking on social media wasn’t enough. I had to see her for myself to make sure what happened yesterday wasn’t affecting her too much. And I had to help her if she needed anything.

Psychological wounds could stick with you.

I knew that all too well. And she was the one who had saved me back when my parents got divorced. So I couldn’t screw this up if she needed help.

Part 2

The out-of-season snow had piled up again.

That was the microplastics sent into the air from the cargo ship burning out at sea. When they gathered air like feathers and wool did, they could burn from the slightest ember.

But the home water supply was unstable, so you might not get anything when you turned on the tap. You couldn’t even try to keep yourself safe by periodically spraying water around with the hose.

“Good, the school still has its water,” said the forehead classes Class Rep with a glance toward the schoolyard drinking fountain. She sounded both exhausted and relieved. She must have received the same morning baptism of no drinking water, no shower, and no flushing the toilet.

“The parks and schools are made to function as evacuation shelters in emergencies,” I explained. “So they either have water stored up in a tank, or they’re hooked up to a special water line.”

“I see.”

That was all she said.

I had been worried after yesterday, but she seemed to be doing fairly well. Maybe she had decided she could not wallow in shock when faced with the growing issues of no water and no power. It could be similar to preparing to live on your own immediately after graduation.

A wet mat was sitting out in the entranceway. We wiped our shoes on that to get the microplastics off and then stuck them in our shoe lockers. We would be wearing our slippers inside anyway, but it was still nice to clean them off.

Once in the classroom, Umikaze-san, the girl with her long blonde hair braided together at only a few spots down its length, called out to me.

“Good morning, Amatsu-kun.”

“Morning.”

“I hear car batteries are getting stolen left and right out there. And the solar panels out in the fields too.”

I understood why people would want to do that, but where were they planning to set them up? The stolen panels would have to be placed somewhere sunny to be useful, which would also make them really conspicuous.

A bunch of people were gathered in one corner of the classroom. It took me a second to realize it was because the school had power.

Either because it used the industrial power or because it had a generator to function as a shelter.

“Is your phone’s charge okay, Amatsu-kun? All the outlets are full up at the moment, though.”

Someone had apparently brought a long power strip from the A/V room and everyone was using that to charge up their phones and other mobile devices.

“Now that I’m here, I feel utterly exhausted.”

“I know what you mean,” agreed the Class Rep.

Some people might think the presence of power and water would make you feel better, but that wasn’t how it worked.

“Is this the only place left where we can live our normal lives? Take a step outside of here and we can’t even use a microwave and need a water truck to bring us something to drink.”

It may have been similar to spotting the chocolate section at the convenience store while you were on a diet. Or was this like the melancholy at the end of summer break? Convenience and comfort did not always bring peace of mind. If you knew from the beginning it would not last, even a bright and shining jewel would only bring pain.

Were the water trucks even running?

Could we really survive just by staying put at home?

We all sighed while Umikaze Speechia observed us.

“…”

Part 3

“I think the school should be used as a shelter.”

I think it was around 2nd period when I received that message on my phone.

It happened while the math teacher, who could have stayed home but decided to actually do his job, had his back turned to write on the blackboard.

Glancing over at the neighboring seat would have been no different from some moron afraid he was going to get in trouble for eating his lunch early. Even if I did look, I knew I would only find Umikaze-san facing the blackboard and copying the equation down in her notes.

Incidentally, I had looked into her social media connections. I had never transferred schools before and didn’t know how it worked, but it looked like she still had connections with her friends from her previous school. Outside of her real-life friends, she also showed an interest in tennis and hard rock bands.

“I mean, if we head home without any power, gas, or water, we’ll just get depressed right? I don’t know how it works, but the school still has some semblance of civilization intact. I bet everyone here wishes they didn’t have to go home today.”

Maybe so.

I couldn’t just stay here with Erika and Ayumi back home, but the biggest draw was the air conditioning. Once you had a taste of that, there was no going back. My phone was honestly enough for TV and internet and I could manage on food with an electric water boiler or microwave even if the cafeteria and school store weren’t functioning.

The running water mattered most of all.

Not only did that give you something to drink and live your normal life, but you might also be able to protect the area around the school from a microplastic snow conflagration if we wet things down in advance. Being able to protect the place you were using for shelter meant a lot.

But on the other hand…

I typed on my phone below the desk so the math teacher wouldn’t notice.

“I don’t know how the system works. Are we really allowed to stay at the school?”

“Don’t people sleep over like normal while preparing for the cultural festival? I’ve never heard of anyone needing to submit some kind of form for approval with that.”

That was true, but still.

I asked Maxwell the same question.

“No. The cultural festival rules are more of a continuing tradition than anything explicitly stated as allowed, so that is a weak argument. Residences and lodging facilities are legally considered separate things, but the former must meet the residence requirements spelled out in the Building Standards Act and the latter must follow the Hotel Business Act or the home sharing rules.”

“Really?”

“You cannot live just anywhere that has a roof. Calling a community center or phone booth your home would be against the rules.”

I copy-pasted that and sent it to the blonde Scylla, but she did seem happy with the answer.

“Isn’t the school a kind of shelter meant to help out in times of need? This is exactly when they should open it up for that.”

“I couldn’t agree more, but once again, I don’t know the rules. You want to open it up, but the students don’t own the school. So who do we go crying to? The principal? The mayor?”

“Sure. The right to use an evacuation shelter belongs to the head of the local government, so you would need the signature of the prefectural governor. But since the current situation has not been designated a disaster, the government office will likely follow the flowchart in their rule book and reject the request.”

“Is there no loophole or anything like that?”

“This microplastic snow would probably be classified as smoke or chemical pollution produced by a naval fire, but ‘would probably’ is not good enough. A country of laws is a system that can only respond to situations within the bounds of what has been described within its laws. Thus, responses based on emotion or ‘common sense’ do not apply. Even if a stretchy-fluffy disaster occurred before your very eyes, the JSDF could not be immediately sent in to assist you. Not unless a stretchy-fluffy disaster has been clearly defined. So you cannot expect much outside assistance until the relevant government offices have analyzed the many documents and filled in any gaps with additional clauses.”

Wow, that was a lot of speech bubbles in a row!

When you knew you weren’t going to like what they said, reading them all was a huge pain.

“So it has to be a part of their flowchart? Isn’t there something in there to account for exceptions?”

“No. Just as you cannot use an evacuation shelter to host a cookout, they may not be used for unapproved purposes. Government offices generally do not allow anything not explicitly mentioned on their list, so a newcomer threat like microplastic snow is unlikely to get a response.”

“There you have it,” I said while forwarding all that to Umikaze-san.

“Who says it has to work like that? It isn’t right for people outside the city to turn down our requests for help when we’re the ones that are in trouble!”

“Umikaze. Umikaze Speechia,” called the teacher. “Can you solve this problem?”

“Eep.”

She shrank down in surprise.

That math teacher must have noticed her getting all worked up. It probably didn’t help that being a blonde transfer student made her stand out a lot.

Ugh, fine.

“Maxwell.”

“Sure. That one is a piece of cake. (｀・ω・´)”

I had no choice but to send the Scylla the answer to the problem on the blackboard. If she had her phone confiscated during all this chaos, she might not be able to get it back.

Part 4

It must have begun as small ripples of conversation occurring below the surface.

It was not until lunchtime that it exploded out onto the surface.

I think it was a mixture of the students being able to interact more openly and frustrations building when people found they could not buy anything at the cafeteria or store.

It was like throwing oil on the fire.

Frustrated voices shouted in anger all over the school.

“What is the Student Council doing!?”

“The teachers are happily eating their lunches in the faculty room while we starve out here.”

“Hey, is this the right format for a petition? This website says it is, but I dunno if I trust it!!”

A lot of people were making a fuss, so I definitely didn’t want to be used as an outlet for their frustrations.

The forehead glasses Class Rep approached me.

“Satori-kun, do you want to head outside?”

I wasn’t dumb enough to ask why. The other students weren’t just hangry. They were even directing their anger toward the teachers who had made their own lunches at home. We didn’t want to end up a target of these people who were left hungry after their lack of foresight led them to assume they could always find bread to buy at the school store no matter the circumstances.

“Umikaze-san was talking about opening the school up as a shelter.”

“Yeah?”

“But that might not be as much of a paradise as it sounds. Do you want to try sleeping in the same room as other people with this kind of tension hanging in the air? Who knows what they would steal the instant you shut your eyes.”

It might sound like fun if you were with your friends, but we were talking about the entire student body.

We ended up eating our lunches on a stairway landing without incident. Without any power or water at home, the Class Rep ate a sweet bread that looked premade.

She finally spoke up hesitantly.

“But, Satori-kun.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think the water trucks are really coming? They’ve even stopped collecting the microplastics that fall on the roads when people clear their roofs.”

“No. It would depend on the demand for water, but if they went around like normal, the trucks would likely be attacked.”

I couldn’t show her Maxwell’s message on my phone.

This was an emergency, so we couldn’t complain if things were less than ideal. On the other hand, if we compromised here, things would only get worse. It was wrong to think of this as a set of scales.

We had to remain calm and stay our normal selves.

And it was important to remember that not everyone would be moving at the same pace as you. Some people might hit their limit before we did and start behaving oddly. As you could see with the craziness people got up to at coming-of-age ceremonies, if people thought they had an excuse, they would readily do things they never would normally. Even though there was no guarantee you could get away with those things just because it was a coming-of-age ceremony. Schools were a collection of a lot of people, so it wouldn’t hurt to be on our guard.

“This is a school, right?”

“Yes?”

“Because it feels more like a powder keg to me. Not that I’ve ever actually seen a real one.”

Part 5

After a conversation like that, I guess can’t exactly say it happened “suddenly”.

In the middle of our first afternoon class, static exploded from the classroom speaker and everyone grimaced.

“What is it now?”

Our English teacher looked more displeased than anyone at having her pronunciation demonstration interrupted. She lifted her slender chin to view the source of the noise.

Everyone waited for more instead of assuming it was a malfunction because we could hear a rustling of clothing coming from the speaker.

Someone had done this on purpose and they had some reason for doing it.

I typed on my phone below my desk.

“Maxwell.”

“There is no sign of anyone operating the broadcast equipment over the internet. The odds are extremely high that someone switched it on from the broadcast room.”

Did that mean it was starting?

Finally, a quiet, trembling boy’s voice spoke with the volume (accidentally?) cranked way too far up.

“I-I am Yama- no, um, I am Student Council Treasurer Yamagaki! Good day to you all!!”

“Kh.”

I plugged my ears at the volume instead of anything he was saying.

His halting way of speaking showed just how nervous he was.

“I think…this is wrong! The school is a…is supposed to be a shelter!! So how is it not being used during…during this emergency!? Isn’t this when it’s…it’s supposed to be used? I, um, think we should do it. Um!”

He was cut off by a metallic sound like a crack of lightning. The door must have been flung open. A voice I assumed belonged to a male teacher shouted in anger and I could hear a scuffle.

“A vote!”

But the boy did not stop.

He was probably being pinned down, but he still got out what he wanted to say.

“Let’s decide for ourselves! This is our school, so it should be our choice!! We can vote…and decide whether or not to use the school as a shelt- agh!?”

The broadcast ended with such violence I could only assume the cable had been pulled instead of the switch flipped.

No one said anything for a while.

Silence fell over us all.

The only sound I heard was my phone vibrating in my hand below the desk.

“Warning.”

“I know.”

“Much of how this happened remains unknown and I doubt he was the one to make that choice. This feels like the work of a class’s popular students wanting to get their opinion out there but having no real authority to do so.”

“That isn’t what matters. This means it’s started, Maxwell!”

Umikaze Speechia-san was within reach at the next desk over and I couldn’t leave the Class Rep who was a bit further away. But I couldn’t carry more than two people.

“I-I wonder what that was about.” The English teacher smiled and tried to smooth things over with obvious tension in her voice. “You can’t do whatever you want just because it’s an emergency, everyone. In America, they break down doors or walls with an axe if people are trapped inside a building during an emergency, but they actually have places constructed with cheaper and flimsier materials to allow for that. What you’re allowed to do during an emergency is decided ahead of time. Really, this is the problem with you Japanese people who just assume emergencies aren’t going to happen. Now, let’s get back to the lesson.”

But.

Even after that, the silence continued.

The English teacher’s words vanished, like they were being swallowed up by a dark cave.

Everyone was staring at her.

And anger was slowly but surely filling the air.

This was the first afternoon class.

Things had changed during lunch. In a few hours, school would be let out and every last student would be forced out of the school. They would be shoved out into the microplastic-filled city where they had no access to power or water. That realization was creeping up on everyone. It was just like how the first day of Golden Week or summer break felt very different from the last day.

“Wh-what?”

It was hard to believe 30 or 40 people were crammed into that space.

The teacher spoke up a little more forcefully than necessary, perhaps because she felt intimidated and perhaps because she did not want the children to notice that.

“Back to the lesson! Open your textbooks. Read the next line when I call on you!!”

But it was no use.

It didn’t matter if she was right or not. Damn that broadcast. Mentioning a vote when the majority were so upset was a really dangerous thing to do!!

The boy being cut off in a struggle with a teacher had only made it worse. That made it feel like we were being oppressed. I couldn’t even remember the nervous boy’s name, but he had done a brilliant job of making himself a martyr!

My phone vibrated, but this was not from Maxwell.

“Yeah, but she actually got to eat lunch. Unlike the rest of us.”

“The teachers all have cars. That means they have air conditioning and a battery for electricity.”

“How long do we have to sit here listening to her? Are we supposed to form a nice polite line while we starve to death?”

The messages were coming fast.

The auto-scrolling couldn’t keep up.

And the class’s frustrations hidden on social media soon showed themselves in the real world too.

It was like a cigarette butt had been tossed onto some dry grass. A wall of fire formed after a short delay.

“Shut the hell up.”

I couldn’t remember which sport he played, but it started with a large athletic boy.

“We don’t have crap. We didn’t eat any lunch. Or breakfast for that matter! And there’s nothing waiting at home for dinner either! What gives you the right to look down on us with your skin and hair all pristine!?”

His food issues weren’t any of the teacher’s concern and she hadn’t caused the microplastic snow, but logic no longer mattered here.

“Calm down. Please calm down.”

“You can only stay calm cause you’ve had food today!” cut in another student.

The meaning of majority rule was changing.

A reversal was underway.

The English teacher must have thought she could maintain control if she dealt with this one angry student, but her shoulders jumped now that the situation had grown beyond that.

Yes.

As long as you could face an abnormal situation with your own rules, your might feel angry and afraid, but you wouldn’t panic. If you still had some sense left, then nothing was more frightening than finding the majority was against you.

I doubted the Class Rep or Umikaze-san had been caught up in this, but the situation was tense enough to deter either of them from trying to stop it.

“I’ve done nothing wrong. And if you’re not gonna help us, why should I listen to your stupid class?”

“She’s just making fun of us.”

“I’m worried! I can’t relax, so how am I supposed to focus on school!? Huh!? Well!? You got any advice there!?”

I heard a loud boom and crash from the ceiling. Had someone lifted their desk overhead and slammed it against the floor?

That meant it wasn’t just our class.

The entire school had gone crazy.

“Sensei.”

The English teacher looked close to tears, so my voice must have sounded like a ray of hope to her. She saw me as one of the few remaining sensible people. She thought I was on her side. But I had to disappoint her. I could only carry the Class Rep and Umikaze-san since she was so close by.

So the most help I could give was a single shouted word.

“Run!!”

What did I do?

Just as everyone’s eyes gathered on me, I grabbed the hand of the blonde girl sitting next to me. And I squeezed tight.

“Kyah!”

“Class Rep!”

It was all or nothing now.

Nowhere was safe anymore. I had to watch my position to make sure I wasn’t swallowed up. I ran toward my familiar childhood friend and tackled her without slowing down.

Why?

Because that was the shortest route out of the class.

What was?

The window.

The glass shattered and the three of us were flung out into the empty air. This was the third floor. That would have been dangerous with asphalt below, but I never would have pulled a stunt like this without having Maxwell simulate it first.

There was a flower bed below.

Plus, the area near the building’s walls was piled high with the microplastic snow after it was shoveled from the roof or cleared from the road. It was piled over a meter high, creating a mat thicker than the one used for the high jump.

“Pwah!”

“S-Satori-kun. I get what you were doing, but a little warning would have been nice!”

“I hate to interrupt when your heart is pounding and your voice cracking, but if I’d had time for a warning, I’d have had time to come up with a better plan!”

I heard a shattering sound overhead and ducked down on reflex. Clear shards rained down unnervingly close by.

Umikaze-san had looked over absentmindedly and her eyes bugged out when she realized what it was.

“That’s glass!”

“And I doubt that’s the last of it. Throwing a desk is enough to break a window, so we need to get away from the walls!! Hurry!!”

I was pretty worried about Itou-san, even if she was an Archenemy and could take on the traits of different plants and animals with her witch’s potions. I sent her a message on my phone to see how she was doing, but I couldn’t think of anything I could actually do for her at the moment. It mattered a lot that she was in a different year from us.

I looked back at the school building and it looked like a deadly labyrinth to me.

I heard yelling and sounds of destruction. Someone must have pulled the fire alarm because it was ringing loud. The ordinary school routine was nowhere to be found. …The school had entirely fallen apart.

“What…do we do now?” worriedly asked the Class Rep while crouched down and holding onto my blazer.

Since she wanted options, she must not have been thinking about returning to the classroom. That was a relief.

And.

It was honestly a good question.

The school wasn’t going to be holding any classes anymore and it wasn’t even a safe place to be. It had power and water, but I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to go to sleep in there now. …To be honest, there was no advantage to staying. Our best bet was probably to sneak over to the shoe lockers, retrieve our shoes, and leave.

But…

“That is quite a commotion.”

Umikaze-san frowned when we actually snuck over toward the entrance. She probably was trying to be stealthy, but her blonde hair was really conspicuous when viewed from behind.

But what were they doing to cause all that noise? It couldn’t just be the windows or sliding doors. It was so loud it made me wonder if they were destroying the reinforced concrete walls.

“Eek, eek!”

A male teacher ran outside while letting out some pathetic screams. He was pulling along…oh, that English teacher. I was glad to see she was safe, but it made me wonder if those two were an item.

They weren’t being pursued by anyone and we already had our hands full, so we hid behind the shoe lockers until they were gone.

Umikaze-san the Scylla had promoted the school as a shelter early on, but I doubt she had expected it to become so post-apocalyptic. She looked somewhat pale.

“Ignoring this might be bad,” I said.

“Because it could start a fire like before? Satori-kun, you can’t chase after every little thing yourself.”

“Not that. This could be even worse than last night.”

I leaned out from behind the shoe lockers and looked down the hallway.

I didn’t want to find trouble, but…dammit.

“Class Rep, Umikaze-san. You two head off the school grounds.”

“Wait, you aren’t coming with us, Amatsu-kun?”

“I can’t.”

I shook my head.

The Class Rep gave me a worried look, but I couldn’t back down on this.

This was a problem that would 100% come back to bite us if I didn’t deal with it now.

“Hey, Class Rep. If they do turn the school into a shelter, who do you think would be in charge?”

“Eh?”

“It won’t be the adult teachers. And I doubt it would be the Student Council since they work with the teachers so much. There would be a backlash from the rest of the students if those honor students tried to take charge.”

“But wasn’t that initial broadcast by, um, someone from the Student Council? What was his name again?”

Umikaze-san shook her pseudo-braid and tilted her head in thought. I knew the feeling. I couldn’t remember the boy’s name either even though he had actually pulled the trigger on all this.

“If that was a decision made by the Student Council as a whole, the President would have made the announcement. I’m betting that was a rebellion.”

And…

“But did he really grab that mic of his own free will? I can’t say for sure since I’ve never actually met him, but he sounded like as much of an indoorsy type as me. I doubt he wanted to gather attention like that.”

“Then whose idea was it?”

“Someone who wanted to get their opinion out there but lacked the authority to do so. Someone who decided to use the Student Council name.”

That meant it wasn’t one of the adult teachers. They had been in a position to force their thoughts onto us students.

Another student had grabbed that mic with a smirk and forced that job onto a shy and inconspicuous Student Council member. And it may have been more than one person who convinced their sacrificial lamb to climb on up there.

“You can almost picture the kind of shallow but popular kids who would do something like that, right? The ones who would end up making the decisions almost by default once the students are in charge.”

“That doesn’t make me want to stay at the school, but why is it dangerous?”

The Class Rep sounded like she wanted to just let them