That's not quite as romantic, though.

lies, if there's anything fanfic has taught me it's that fighting zombies is totally romantic.

In all seriousness though, I probably could have made it a 1000 times more clearer but option 2 was what I was trying to aim for too, I can be terrible at explaining myself sometimes. I think your idea of starting off with Rin coming back and going off from there would be a better way to go though.