Observations
 
by Loren Dean

The dead were everywhere. And walking.

Naoki fought as he had been trained. Nothing matters but the damage. Swing the blade until your opponent falls, and then swing at something else. He had found that cleaving a zombie's head in half was an effective method of ridding it of the mask it wore, which rendered it inanimate, and so was performing that deed with much more force than Jinjiro, who he could see across the field flicking his sword deftly into mask straps and alongside zombie heads to free the masks.

He soon found himself without an opponent, and crunched across a fallen foe to survey the fight, his eyes falling on Kataji and Ozaki.

The pair were truly an impressive sight. Naoki studied their style for a few moments. They seemed to operate in near-perfect harmony, fighting as they did in a pair. Indeed, the analogy of harmony was appropriate. Standing solid, immobile, was Kataji, swinging his tetsubo in mighty arcs, the rhythm as steady as a prayer drum. Spinning across and around him was Ozaki, a dancing flute melody of flickering steel — his no-dachi now stabbing, now slashing, moving everywhere Kataji was not. The display was as beautiful as it was deadly, and Naoki considered that against intelligent opponents, it would be extraordinarily lethal. Against the soulless undead they now faced it lost much of its impact, but was no less effective at bringing the shambling things down.

Enough gawking, Kataji could almost hear his sensei bark. Scanning for another target, he launched himself back into the fray.