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Yuito’s head is spinning. That’s nothing new at this point, if he’s being honest with himself, but the reason, at least, is different from usual. Though he’d chosen to turn to Togetsu in pursuit of information, if someone had told him beforehand that he’d come away having learned of an impending apocalypse - two apocalypses, even, depending on how one framed Togetsu’s ambitions - then he would have– Well, he wouldn’t have laughed, couldn’t have laughed, but if the information had come from anyone other than Kasane and her platoon, he certainly would have been less ready to believe it. But it had come from Kasane, and so no matter how much he had wanted to challenge her, the words simply hadn’t come.
And they still don’t come. Like the white mist of his breath into Hieno Mountain’s frigid air, like the freshly falling snow dusting over the footprints the group of five leave in their wake as they descend the trail, every time he tries to open his mouth and ask his companions how much they can believe what they just heard, the doubts all fade away.
Maybe it’s the same for the others. Maybe that’s why no one’s said a word since they parted ways with Kasane’s group and started back down the trail towards Suoh.
Maybe they’re all caught on the same thought that sticks like a lump in Yuito’s throat, able neither to climb its way to his lips nor to sink back down into his chest.
When Wataru’s voice comes over the platoon’s brain talk channel, it cuts through the silence so suddenly that it nearly jolts Yuito out of his skin, “Hey, guys, looks like there’ll be some inclement weather coming over your route in the next hour or so. Might be a good idea to go ahead and start setting up an encampment.”
The warning calls Yuito’s attention to the sky, pillowy with thick, gray clouds, and to the wind that howls across the high ledges. He’d been hoping that the weather wouldn’t deteriorate any further, but it would be dishonest for him to say that he was disappointed. As much as he wants to return to Suoh as quickly as possible, he can’t imagine trying to navigate worsening conditions through the headache that’s still pounding on the back of his skull.
“Got it. Thanks for the heads-up, Wataru,” Yuito replies, and he lets pass a soft sigh before turning to address the others, “It’s a little early, but are we all good with stopping for the night?”
Gemma answers first, “Sure, that’s reasonable. We’re lucky that we don’t have any particular time constraints at the moment. We can afford to be slowed down a bit.”
“I’ll see if I can find any caves, or overhangs,” Tsugumi says, her eyes taking on the red luster that her clairvoyance gives them. “For shelter.”
“Send me the location data, please, if you spot anything we can use for firewood,” Luka adds, and Tsugumi begins to nod but pauses.
“It will be… challenging, in this environment, to find firewood that’s not too damp to use…”
“Oh, you can leave that to me!” Hanabi suggests. “I should be able to dry it off with my fire!”
“All right, sounds like we’ve got a plan, then,” Yuito says, and just as he starts to consider what else he can do before they pinpoint shelter, Tsugumi makes a small sound.
“I found one,” she reports. “There’s a grotto, about eighty-five meters southeast, down the ridge… I’m sending the coordinates now. It’s small, but I don’t see any Others near it.”
“Small’s good,” Gemma says with a shrug. “Makes it easy to keep warm. Shall we go take a look?”
And so the group sets off, the snowfall picking up around them as they make their way towards the point Tsugumi indicated.
They have to leave the trail and carefully, carefully climb down a cliff face to a narrow ledge below to get to it, but the cave, stout and shallow though it is, makes for a decent enough overnight shelter for five. Better yet, Tsugumi tells them that she’s located a grove further below the ridge and supports Luka with teleporting down to collect wood while Yuito and Gemma clear the accumulated snow off the cave’s floor and Hanabi works behind them to dry the ground. Just as Wataru warned, the snowfall quickly begins to pick up in intensity, and it’s not long before the mountain is obscured in a veil of white.
While Tsugumi arranges the wood that Hanabi has already dried into a campfire, the platoon’s brain talk crackles with Wataru’s voice, “I think you can prob–y expect to lose most connectiv– with Psynet over the nex– to forty-five minutes . ”
“Yeah, it sounds like the signal is already deteriorating,” Yuito responds as he lifts up the snow he and Gemma have heaped up by the cave’s mouth and shapes it roughly into a windbreak. “I think we’ve gotten pretty much settled, though, so we sh-should–”
His train of thought is severed by a familiar shock of pain that spears cleanly through his skull, radiating white-hot as if to tear his head open. His psychokinetic grasp falters and the snow collapses to the ground as he turns his all his attention to staying conscious, his whole body tensed and his eyes screwed tightly shut.
“Yuito! Are you okay?!”
It’s Hanabi who reacts first, and as Yuito feels her lay her hand gently on his back, he all but coughs out the strangled breath that he didn’t realize he was holding. He can feel the other three watching, waiting, worrying, and forces himself to reply, relieved to hear the words come out sounding the way he means them to, “I’m– I’m okay. I’m okay. It’s easing up.”
And it is, but what he really means is that it’s returning to that same baseline throb that he’s just learned to live with.
“You had a headache come on earlier, too, didn’t you? When we encountered that huge Other,” Gemma recalls, and Yuito can still hear the same edge in his voice that he felt in his gaze. “Your speech seems okay. What about your memory?”
“It’s been fine, I think,” he says, though he knows his response comes with an implicit as far as I know.
Luka frowns, hesitates. “I know you don’t want to hear this,” he says at length, “but I’d like to strongly recommend that you consider taking one of the ampoules now, before your symptoms worsen any–”
But Yuito immediately doubles down, “I’m fine! It’s just a little pain - I can deal with this much.”
“You… stopped using that medicine, didn’t you?” Tsugumi says. “After we found out where it comes from…”
“Well…” Of course I did, he wants to say, because of course he did, but it’s hard to say out loud to the people who have been troubled most by his condition that he just doesn’t want to take the medicine that will keep it from getting worse.
“I get it,” Hanabi says with a tug that encourages Yuito to take a seat by the fire. “I don’t think I could stand it either, honestly. Maybe, maybe if we knew for sure that it was manufactured ethically, but…”
Gemma snorts. “At this point I think I’d be more surprised by the government doing anything ethically than I would be by a Saws Paws tap dancing up to us and serving cake.”
Despite everything, the imagery pulls a faint laugh from Yuito. “And that probably wouldn’t even be the strangest thing we’ve seen since this whole mess started.” He takes a breath and returns to Luka’s concern, “I do hear what you’re saying, though. I… I don’t think I can stomach drinking that stuff preventatively, but I won’t let it get as bad as it did that time in Mizuhagawa.”
The unease stays in Luka’s expression, but he nods nonetheless. “All right,” he yields. “Just… try not to overextend yourself.”
“I’ll be careful,” Yuito agrees with a nod, but since being careful doesn’t mean kicking back and leaving the rest of the preparations for his friends to deal with, he pushes himself upright, dusts his hands and his pants, and returns to the half-crumbled wall he stepped away from earlier. The faint violet glow of his psychokinesis flickers around his hands and around the compacted snow as he lifts it and packs it together onto the windbreak.
“Let me help,” Hanabi says as she joins him, heating the palm of her hand and running it over the seams in the snow to seal them, and then Yuito blinks and she’s gone. Hanabi is gone, and Tsugumi and Luka are gone, and the cave and the light and warmth of the fire are gone and Yuito finds himself midstep in the midst of the whirling snow, wind whipping at the hood that’s pulled up to shield his face from the bite of the cold, and he stares forward, wide-eyed and dazed, at Gemma, who stands a short ways ahead and looks back at him expectantly.
“Yuito?” Gemma says, and Yuito feels the blood pull away from his fingertips.
“I… don’t remember how we got here,” he admits, though he can tell from the look on Gemma’s face that he already suspects as much. “The last thing I remember is talking with everyone in the cave. Hanabi was helping me with the windbreak…”
Gemma thinks for a moment, and then he explains, his expression curtained with an apprehension that makes Yuito’s stomach twist, “That was about a half an hour ago. Tsugumi spotted a few groups of Others making moves that had her worried we might end up pincered on that tiny ledge, so we split up to take them out preemptively.”
Yuito nods slowly, takes a breath, takes stock of himself. His head hurts, but not excruciatingly, not unbearably, and his psychokinesis responds normally when he tests it. “I think I’m good to go,” he decides as he takes a step forward through the still-deepening snow. “Lead the way, Gemma.”
But Gemma doesn’t move so readily, and when he replies, he picks carefully over his words, “We actually agreed before we left that you’d return to camp if any further issues came up.”
Yuito stubbornly shakes his head. “What, and let you go after the Others alone? I can’t do that.”
“I’ll go back too - we’ll ask Tsugumi to take another look and reassess the situation as needed.” He starts back towards Yuito, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder. “Look, I know how you must feel, but we’re not in any position to take risks right now. This snowstorm has really crippled Psynet coverage - we won’t have the option of requesting backup over brain talk if anything happens.”
Disheartening as it is, Yuito can’t disagree. He’s the one, after all, willfully refusing to use the medicine that would stop him from being such a liability. What right does he have to argue against judgment made to mitigate that liability?
So he swallows down his complaints and turns to follow Gemma - turns to, but catches sight of a bullet of water rocketing towards them through the thick snowfall as he does.
“Gemma–!” he warns, his body already reacting, arm stretching out and psychically seizing the projectile, repelling it and reversing it back the way it came. There’s a harsh, metallic clang in retort - the distinctive sound of a Rat Rut’s armor rattling from impact.
Gemma is ahead of Yuito in an instant, sclerotic shell already wrapped around his body and fists raised and ready. “If this is one of the Others Tsugumi spotted,” he says, “there’s probably several more nearby. How do you feel? Can you handle combat?”
Yuito opens his mouth to reply, but the words stick. He wants to lie, I’ll fight. You can count on me. He wants to be honest, It hurts. I’m going to end up putting you in danger. He wants to take one of those ampoules, snap the seal, and throw the contents down his throat without a care in the world, but who did that medicine used to be? Whose dreams and fears and joys and sorrows and memories had they tossed into a blender and distilled down into a single gulp so someone else deemed more important, less expendable could live? Just thinking about it is nearly enough to turn his stomach in on itself.
Another blast of water comes but breaks harmlessly apart against Gemma’s hardened forearm, and he doesn’t wait for a reply, “Let’s fall back!”
Yuito can only imagine how painfully obvious the indecision is on his face. Frustrating as it is, he knows that his companion’s call is the correct one, and with a brief affirmative, he immediately starts evaluating escape routes. There’s the glint of an enemy approaching their flank, a clatter and a crunching of snow, and he casts out his psychokinesis in a wide net, feeling for anything to take hold of. Something loosens - one of the countless strange ice formations that pock every corner of the mountain’s landscape - but as he swings his arm to hurl it at his target, his head splits with a pain so sharp, so oppressively and abruptly acute that it tears a cry from his throat, steals the air from his lungs, and the ice drops to the ground as he doubles over, palm pinned to his forehead.
It hurts, it hurts, damn it it hurts. It hurts so much that he can barely think, can barely parse Gemma’s voice calling out to him. It hurts so much that he’s helpless to react when the Rat Rut he failed to turn away retaliates, and the force of the water knocks him off his feet, tumbling him defenselessly across the snow.
“Yuito!”
There’s a tug on the back of his jacket - Gemma, trying roughly and quickly to encourage him back onto his feet. “Hey, are you all right?!” he says. “Can you stand?”
Yuito nods, though it’s not clear even to him whether it’s a genuine answer or simply a reflex. Whatever the case, his principles collapse under the weight of self-preservation, and he sits on his knees and searches clumsily, tremulously through his belongings for the case of ampoules Karen forced on him when they escaped from the abandoned OSF hospital.
He almost tangibly feels Gemma relax at his side as he fumbles with undoing the latch, but before he can unseat one of the ampoules from their casing, a familiar sound cuts through the snow and sets every one of his nerves on high alert: the droning song of a self-destructing Session Pound.
He searches frantically for the source, clambering up from his knees in hopes that he’ll be able to outrun the impending explosion if he finds its direction quickly enough. The song intensifies, an orange light breaks through the howling snows, and Gemma puts himself between Yuito and the Other’s boxy silhouette.
“Use SAS!” he barks out. “Now!”
Yuito tries, but he can’t trigger the connection - not because of Psynet’s outage, but because his brain simply won’t accept it. He tries again, forces it, pushes against the block so hard his vision swims and his brow mists over with sweat, and that orange light glows brighter, and the Session Pound’s song reaches its crescendo, and–
And Yuito blinks at the white that swirls around the low boughs of the pine tree hanging overhead, and he fills his lungs with frigid air and wonders if his memory has lapsed again or if he’s only just regained his consciousness. His cheek is pressed into the snow, an arm pinned under his body, and every part of him is stiff and aching. He can almost remember an explosion, panicking as the ground shifted under his feet, falling…
Gemma…!
He has no memory, no idea at all of what became of Gemma and bolts upright to search his surroundings - or tries to, but his arm buckles, a sudden sear of pain lancing through it the moment he puts weight on it, and he immediately rolls onto his opposite side, buries his face against the snow, and chokes back his voice.
Shit. Shit.
A moment passes before Yuito is ready to unclench his teeth, and when he does, he takes one long, deep, haggard breath, maneuvers his unaffected arm under him, and slowly peels himself up out of the frost and onto his feet. He finds himself in a pine thicket at the bottom of a steep slope that ramps up to a cliff, and he wonders if this isn’t the place Tsugumi pointed out to Luka for gathering firewood. He finds the trail he left as he spilled down the slope, looks up towards the distant ledge, and feels grateful that he doesn’t have worse injuries to show for the fall. He finds a black case half buried a ways off, only a couple of the ampoules scattered near it, and carefully leans down to collect them.
He finds no trace of Gemma anywhere around him, and his chest tightens with worry.
“Gemma!” he calls out. “Gemma! Can you hear me?!”
The wind’s hollow wail is that only reply that comes. The brain talk line is silent as well, and even SAS displays no available connections. Given circumstances, Gemma is either unconscious or simply out of range. Yuito puts his faith in the latter; Gemma’s power allows him to absorb a huge amount of damage, after all, and Yuito can’t imagine him being taken out of commission by a mere fall.
Yuito, on the other hand, feels fairly confident that his arm was broken somewhere between the top of the cliff and the bottom. He winces as he palpates the area, noting swelling but no blood, no feeling of bone shifting under his skin. It hurts like absolute hell, but he’s relieved, at least, that it was an arm and not a leg. His psychokinesis will easily make up for the loss of the use of one of his hands.
He frowns. His psychokinesis won’t make up for anything if he can’t activate it without completely debilitating himself, and though his head is a bit clearer now than it was before the fall, the fact that it got as bad as it did in the first place means that it will easily get that bad again. He frowns more deeply, runs his thumb over the contours of one of the ampoules clutched in his hand. Yuito should feel glad that at least some of the medicine made it to the same place as him, and he does, maybe. A part of him does feel glad. But how nice would it have been to be able to shrug and say, Whoops, looks like all those ampoules got lost somewhere. Oh well, guess there’s no choice but to do without.
Tsugumi would start searching for them just as soon as she heard, he imagines. They all would, just as he would for them were their positions reversed.
And so Yuito tenses the neck of the ampoule between his thumb and forefinger until he hears it crack apart, he holds his breath, and he presses the glass to his lips and downs the liquid in one draught.
It’s bitter, it’s foul, it winds his stomach up into a knot and threatens to come right back up his throat again, and Yuito clamps a hand over his mouth, screws his eyes shut, swallows, swallows, swallows again. He keeps it down. He breathes. He keeps it down.
With a few heavy, unsteady steps backwards, Yuito rests his back against the trunk of a tall tree and slowly lowers himself down to the ground. His fingertips are already red and numb from the cold, but he needs to immobilize his arm before deciding on his next move, and he needs to distract himself from the taste lingering on his tongue before it makes him sick all over again. He unclips a first aid kit from its straps and gets to work.
An OSF soldier treating his own injures is hardly anything uncommon, but Yuito does wonder offhandedly just how many of his fellow new recruits are as used to it as he is. He remembers carting himself off to the medicine cabinet as a child, all tears and sniffles, with many a skinned knee or grazed elbow. He remembers the look one of the house’s maids gave him when he calmly stepped out of the kitchen with a blood-wet towel clenched tightly around a sliced finger. And it wasn’t that there were no adults around him willing to give him the time of day - his father was distant, sure, but the servants were all good people, and he knows that any of them would have been happy to help had he ever asked it of them - but his brother had always impressed it upon him so firmly: A son of the Sumeragi family has to be strong. A son of the Sumeragi family has to manage his own responsibilities, clean up his own mistakes, tend his own wounds.
He wonders what Kaito would think if he knew that Yuito was stranded alone in the Hieno wilderness, splinting a broken arm with branches pulled off from a pine tree.
He wonders what Kaito would think if he heard that the end of the world is right at their doorstep and that the only thing that will stop it is the death of his own little brother.
Yuito’s hands stop moving for a moment, his brow pinching. He hasn’t really had the time yet to think about what Kasane said… or, well, that’s not quite true. He just hasn’t wanted to think about it, has avoided thinking about it, doesn’t even know how to think about it. He only joined the OSF in the first place because he wanted to save people. How in the world had he wound up bringing about the impending death of every person on the planet?
Something jars him out of his thoughts and turns his attention to the trees, and he doesn’t know if it was a sound or a movement or just his intuition, but Yuito no longer feels safe lingering in the area. He hurriedly takes the band of red belting he’s repurposed from his uniform and psychically winds it around behind his back, straps his upper arm to his side, and fastens his forearm against his chest. It’s the first time in days that he’s been able to use his psychokinesis without the faintest twinge of discomfort, but he doesn’t have the leisure of appreciating that now. Just as soon as the arm is secure and comfortable, he packs up, picks up, and slips quietly away.
As he moves, a small doubt nags deep in the back of Yuito’s head: What if he just gives himself over to whatever Other is lurking in the woods? The thought is more cutting even than the blizzard’s winds, but even though he wants, tries to shake it off, it sticks stubbornly on his mind. The threat of the Kunad Gate, Togetsu’s schemes - wouldn’t it all be resolved if his brain, and his power with it, were washed down some Other’s gullet?
There comes a low growl from somewhere amidst the trees, and despite himself, Yuito lights a pale glow around his sword, frees it from its sheath, and brings it to his side as he searches the forest. A huge, quadrupedal shadow stalks between the trunks, branch-like appendages rustling on the crown of its head: a Chinery-type Other. It roars, and before Yuito can get out of the way, a spray of water rains down from above and drenches him like pins from head to toe in icy cold. The snow clings to his damp face, and he staggers to move, just move, knowing all too well that Winery Chinery rarely waste an opportunity to stun their soaked prey with electricity.
A lurid yellow flash floods the grove, and Yuito, sensing that he’s moving too slowly, too awkwardly to avoid it, casts his sword out and away from himself, towards the Other, hoping that its metal might attract the shock. The wager pays off, and as the air trembles and the blade crackles and sparks, Yuito seizes the chance to steal a little more distance between himself and his foe. Fortunately, the dense forestation provides no shortage of cover, and he ducks swiftly behind a tr–
A cacophonous crack echos sharply off the cliffs, and Yuito’s blood runs cold as he finds himself completely exposed, the surrounding trees all snapped like toothpicks and trodden flat against the ground under the Other’s hands. Panic flickers through his chest, and he at once throws his grip out for his fallen sword and brings it sailing through the air. But whether it’s the absence of SAS support or the sheer intensity of his emotions destabilizing his psychokinesis, his attack doesn’t hit the Other with enough force to daunt it, and, as if in disgust, the thing rears up on its hindquarters and drags its hands across the faucet-like apparatus it sports in lieu of a face. Yuito recognizes the movements, knows that they telegraph another burst of electricity, and he tugs on one of the fallen trees until it comes free from the snow and sweeps it at the creature’s legs.
With a shrill cry, the Other topples to the ground, and Yuito doesn’t look back, doesn’t waste even a fraction of a moment making his retreat. Coward, some quiet corner of his conscience derides . Idiot. Selfish.
His foot catches on some unseen obstacle, and with a short cry of surprise, he tips forward into the snow. Sputtering, clenching his teeth against the throbbing of his arm, he pushes himself up, scrambles onto his knees, feels–
He feels a set of bony, leathery fingers, each as long as one of his own limbs, catch him around his torso and pull him from the ground, and blinding terror rifles violently through his every faculty.
Time slows almost to a standstill as Yuito’s thoughts whirl dizzyingly through his head. It was always going to have to come to this anyway, wasn’t it? Kasane may have chosen to give up on killing him, but it hardly seems to have been because she had any better ideas. And what’s he going to do with the time that she’s allowed him? Fritter it all away naively searching for some alternative that may not even exist? How long will she let the Kunad Gate ravage the world before deciding that her change of heart had been a mistake? How long will he?
A son of the Sumeragi family manages his own responsibilities. Yuito can’t honestly say that he’s ever staked that much of his identity on the Sumeragi name, but he still recognizes the immaturity in waiting for someone else to make a hard decision for him - and the ignobility of expecting a friend to dirty their hands doing what he’s too afraid to do himself.
If he just closes his eyes, it makes no difference whether it’s a knife or an Other.
If he just closes his eyes and waits…
But there’s not one muscle in his entire body that’s willing to contribute towards closing his eyes, and as the Other raises him up towards the pitch black hole of its hollow maw, Yuito realizes he’s shouting, realizes that he’s pushing and kicking against the Other’s hand with every ounce of strength he has, throwing ice and branches and anything he can wrap his psychokinesis around in desperation, utter desperation to make the monster release him. But it just tightens its grip, raises its other hand, and delicately, deliberately takes Yuito’s head between its thumb and forefinger.
And Yuito screams. He screams. His vision constricts down to a pinpoint, and without even the barest hint of indecision, he broadcasts a distress signal on every channel available to him.
He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to die! He doesn’t want to die!
A notification comes through: SAS connected.
“Yuito!”
There’s a bright green blur overhead as Luka teleports above and lets all the weight of his hammer slam down mercilessly on the Other’s head, and it cries out, recoils, and loses its hold on its prey. His whole body shuddering and his face stiff from the tears freezing on his cheeks, Yuito unsteadily rights himself as Luka swings again and pushes the enemy back another step.
“Are you okay?!” Luka calls out from the fray. “Are you hurt?!”
“I’m–” Yuito stumbles over his words, takes a ragged breath, tries again. “I’m injured,” he answers honestly. “But I’m okay.”
He’s okay. He’s alive. He’s okay.
“Any more Others in the area, Tsugumi?”
“Gemma!” Yuito exclaims as his companion slides down from higher up the slope. “You’re all right!”
Gemma spares him a smile and a thumbs-up.
“No… Just this one.” Tsugumi appears at Gemma’s side, gun in hand. “It must have staked this place out as its territory.”
“Yuito!” Hanabi arrives as well, and where the other two join Luka in combat, Hanabi crouches at Yuito’s side, her already fraught features tensing with yet more worry when she notices the arm he’s strapped to himself. “Oh, no…” she says as she gently reaches out, hesitant to touch. “Thank god Tsugumi found you when she did. You’re probably freezing, aren’t you?” She doesn’t wait for an answer before igniting a small, hot flame in the palms of her hands, and its warmth, steadfast even despite the wailing snow and wind, encircles Yuito, envelopes him, and slowly, patiently thaws the trembling out of his shoulders.
A lone Chinery is nothing before the combined experience of Luka, Gemma, and Tsugumi, and the battle ends even before Yuito has completely recovered himself. Gemma is first to approach, fretful, “How’s your brain feeling? You were in pretty rough shape before that fall.”
“It’s fine,” Yuito assures with a shake of his head in dismissal, and his gaze dips. “I managed to keep some of the ampoules on me, so…”
Luka frowns softly. “I’m sorry it came to that,” he says, “but I’m relieved to hear that you were able to make that decision. I don’t even want to imagine what could have happened if that Other had found you while you were compromised.”
“For real!” Hanabi immediately agrees. “Chinery-types are tough even under good conditions. I totally freaked out when your distress call came through!”
“I think we all did,” Tsugumi nods.
Hearing this, Yuito feels a pang of guilt. “Sorry to worry you all so much. I was… kind of scared out of my mind. I just sent the signal without even thinking about it.” He gives a small, sheepish laugh. “I didn’t realize you were so close by already. I’m kind of embarrassed that I sent it now.”
“I’m glad you did, though,” Gemma says with a faint shrug. “I mean, obviously I would have preferred to reach you before it got bad enough for you to send it, but you’re always so concerned about keeping us from worrying about you. So it’s nice, in a way - knowing that you’re willing to ask us for help when you need it.”
“Huh?” Yuito blinks, disarmed by the sentiment, and ducks his head. “But, I’m… I feel like I do nothing but rely on you guys.”
“It goes without saying, that comrades-in-arms rely on each other in combat,” Tsugumi says, and she offers a hand both to Yuito and to Hanabi and pulls them up on their feet, “but when it comes to asking for help as a friend, you’re quick to extend your hand to others, Yuito, but… shy, about taking one extended to you.”
“Well, perhaps the middle of a blizzard isn’t the best place to have this conversation,” Luka interrupts. “Shall we head back to camp first?”
“Yeah, we need to take a good look at that arm!” Hanabi adds, and she brushes away the clumps of snow sticking to Yuito’s wet shoulders. “And you need to dry off and warm up.”
With a grunted affirmative, Gemma starts back towards the slope, trudging back through the trail already carved through the snow by the group’s descent, and turns to speak over his shoulder, “It’s not all that far, but still, take it easy - we don’t know what other injuries you might have that you haven’t noticed because of adrenaline. Speak up if you need a break.”
“I think I’m all right,” Yuito says as he and the rest of the platoon move to follow, “but I will. Thanks.”
A part of him wonders if any of his companions had, for even a moment, entertained the thought of giving Yuito over to his fate. Each of them knows just as much as he does about the connection between his existence and that of the Kunad Gate, and each would have the condolence of knowing that it was a necessary, meaningful death, a sacrifice for the sake of all the rest of the world. It would have been sensible, so much more so than racing out into a blizzard to rescue someone who may have no choice but to die.
It would have been sensible, but none of them had wavered for an instant. Luka, who had acted without hesitation to wrench him out of the Other’s hands; Gemma and Tsugumi, who swept in right behind Luka to push the monster back; Hanabi, who came straight to his side to check for injury - Yuito can’t imagine any one of them asking him to die. He can’t imagine any of them telling him he has no choice.
You have to live. No matter what.
He will. He’ll live. He’ll reach out, and he’ll take the hand his friends extend to him.