“Mr. Silver?!” one of the men shouted.
“I told you to stay away,” Leonard told them coldly. “Turn back.”
“But you can’t—”
“Leave!”
“There he is!” one of the men shouted, and fired at Sousuke. His shot pierced the tank he was hiding behind, releasing the liquid within.
Sousuke returned fire, downing one of them with a shot to the chest. The remaining three fanned out and kept up the fire. Their stray bullets ricocheted off pipes and cables, causing sparks to fly.
The enemies are well trained, Sousuke observed. They don’t seem fazed by the losses they took, and work skillfully together for support and setting up kill shots. But there was a monotony to the rhythm of their attacks and movements: they must not have been a team for very long.
One of them came into the open just as Sousuke had expected, and he put the man down with a single shot. But his opponent seemed to have been trying to throw a grenade at him, and it rolled from his fallen hand with the pin pulled...
Sousuke gasped, and there was an explosion as the incendiary grenade went off with a flash of white and a burst of fire... It was meant to burn its surroundings at high temperatures, and was especially effective indoors.
Sousuke was far enough away not to be hurt, but something more serious had happened: there had been a fluid tank right next to the space in which the grenade had gone off, the same one that had been damaged before.
Sousuke didn’t know what fluid it could be that hadn’t lost its flammability in over seventeen years... but whatever it was, the grenade had set it off, and now the flames from the ensuing fireball were spreading across the room along the pipes.
In turn, those flames triggered more fires and explosions. The shockwaves of heat and force smashed through the floor, which brought down a rain of rebar and concrete from the ceiling. Sousuke barely managed to dodge the falling debris on his way to the exit. He knew if he stayed in the room, he’d asphyxiate—if he didn’t boil first.
He heard one of the enemies scream as he caught fire and fell through a newly-made hole in the floor. This sound was followed by another explosion behind him. It was hard to run with the floor collapsing beneath him, warping and shifting into a steep slant. Sousuke fell, got up, and fell again.
They were in no condition to keep up the fight. Half running, half crawling, Sousuke scrambled away from the fire and the landslide.
“There it goes again...” There was a series of gunshots followed by a large explosion. The corridor’s ceiling trembled, showering dust down on Kaname and the others from above.
“It must be Sagara-san. He’s encountered the enemy while searching for me,” Tessa said, having more or less caught Kaname up on the situation. She’d been separated from Sousuke after the helicopter crash, and had run into her and Lemon while searching for him.
Sousuke’s nearby. The thought of it caused Kaname’s heart to race. She had to hold back the urge to run off blindly on her own, reminding herself that she’d just get herself lost.
But emotion refused to disentangle itself from good sense. I want to see him, she thought desperately. I can’t wait one second longer. I won’t get lost. He’ll find me if I call for him. The enemy will find me, you say? Nope. He’ll find me first, for sure. That unreasonable train of thought kept on asserting itself inside of her, refusing to be put down.
The explosion had come in the middle of one such agonizing session.
“Let’s find him!” Kaname begged the others. “I think I know which direction it came from.”
“Perhaps, but...” Tessa hesitated.
“But what?”
“There’s clearly a battle in progress,” Tessa pointed out. “Lemon-san’s leg is injured... If we run into the enemy before we find Sagara-san, he won’t be able to escape.”
“But we don’t know that we will!” Kaname argued back. “And Sousuke might be in trouble! We can’t just leave him there!”
“We don’t know that we won’t. And my priority is your and Lemon-san’s safety—”
“Oh, screw your stupid logic! I want to see him! And if you try to stop me, I’ll go by myself!” déjà vu washed over her yet again, and Kaname’s voice trembled as she found her irritation reaching its boiling point.
“Please calm down. I haven’t—”
“Calm down, my ass! He’s finally... finally here, after all this time. Why won’t you let me see him?” she demanded. “Would that be inconvenient for you? Why—”
“Kaname-san, stop,” Lemon interrupted, grabbing her arm. Shocked by his strength, Kaname snapped out of her fugue, realizing how inappropriately she was behaving. “I get how you feel, but you have to calm down. If we get careless now, all we’ve done will be for nothing.”
He’s right, she realized. Now’s a time for caution. Out loud she said, “Sorry, Tessa.”
“It’s all right. It’s partly my fault in the first place,” Tessa whispered weakly.
A powerful feeling of guilt surged through Kaname. Tessa cared for Sousuke too, and here Kaname was, thinking only of herself... And yet, Tessa had borne the abuse admirably. If Kaname had been in Tessa’s place, she would have torn her a new one over behavior like that. “No... I really am sorry,” she said, trying to apologize once more. “I think I might be going crazy...”
“It’s understandable,” Tessa said in a comforting voice. “It’s been so long since you last saw Sagara-san, and now you’re so close...”
“Yeah...”
“If everyone’s feeling better, we should get moving,” Lemon told them gravely. “It’s dangerous to stay in one place for too long. We need to get as far from the enemy as possible, and if we’re lucky, we might find another exit. Getting to the surface and contacting our allies with Testarossa-san’s radio is still our best move.”
“But Sousuke—”
“He’ll be okay. He’ll find it easier to act without us slowing him down, and eventually he’ll get the idea to head for the surface and check in, too. There’s nothing to be gained by meeting up with him now, and trying to force it will just raise the chances of us all dying together.”
It sounded like a coward’s reasoning to her, but Lemon must have been through his share of dangerous situations... It’s probably wisest to listen to his judgment, Kaname decided. “Okay, we’ll do that,” she said with a nod, forcing down the lingering desire to run to where she knew Sousuke to be. “Tessa, do you know your way around?”
“I know the facility’s general layout,” Tessa told them. “If we can make it to the lowest floor, there should be an emergency staircase or exhaust duct on the north side. There’s no guarantee the enemy won’t have the place surrounded by now, but it’s safer than going out the south side, at least...”
“Which way is north?”
“This way. Let’s go.” Tessa pointed to one hallway in a four-way intersection, and they began to walk, with the girls supporting Lemon on both sides.
In the dark, Lemon let out a small laugh.
“What’s wrong?” Kaname asked him.
“Ah... I was just thinking, ‘You’ve got a beautiful woman on each arm, you lucky dog.’ If I wasn’t in screaming pain, I’d be in heaven.”
“Tessa. Are you sure we can’t just leave him here?”
“Hmm... but we should give him one last request before we do,” Tessa agreed innocently.
“Ahh... sorry,” Lemon told them. “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me here.”
“For Pete’s sake...” Kaname muttered. Then, adjusting her grip on the genuinely penitent Lemon, they resumed their slow movement though the darkness.
I’m trapped. That was the conclusion Sousuke had come to after escaping the fire and wandering around for a while. Everywhere he went, he found collapsed ceilings and sealed iron doors blocking his way. He’d thought about blasting through with C4, but the smell of some kind of gas permeated the area, and he was afraid it could trigger another explosion.
Staying alert towards the room in which they’d initially fought, he tried to go back the way he’d come, only to find the path blocked by more collapsed girders and pipes. The fire was out by now, and while he was glad it hadn’t devoured all the oxygen, he also knew he couldn’t stay here forever.
He was worried about Tessa, too. If the enemy has come this far, he thought, she might already be in their custody. She was the little sister of their commander, so they probably wouldn’t kill her on sight, but that didn’t mean they’d let her go free, either.
Maybe I should escape and meet up with Kurz and the others first, he reasoned. With the powerful Laevatein and the backing of Kurz’s machine, it might be possible to get Tessa back. He still wasn’t sure if he could beat Leonard’s AS, but it was a more realistic plan than standing off against a horde of enemies with a lone carbine with dud aim.
But what if Tessa hadn’t been caught yet? Even then, he told himself, I should still try to meet up with Kurz and the others. If he wanted enough time to find all of his allies in this labyrinth, he’d have to take out all the enemies first. Assuming that was even possible...
Sousuke gasped as he once again turned the corner to find Leonard there. He must have escaped the explosion as well... More annoyingly, his outfit was barely even scuffed.
Leonard and Sousuke each noticed the other at about the same time. They pointed their guns, but didn’t fire.
“Hold on, now,” Leonard laughed. “Surely you’ve realized that shooting might trigger an explosion.”
That rotten onion smell that had been tickling his nose all this time was most likely a flammable LP gas. Using his gun would be dangerous.
“Or it might not,” Sousuke said, keeping his gun pointed at his opponent’s head. He was too close to miss. One shot would end it. But the reverse was true, too...
“Shall we, then?” Leonard offered. “It might be amusing to see what happens.”
“An appealing proposition,” Sousuke agreed.
“So you say, but you’re actually planning on pulling a knife from your belt,” Leonard predicted. “That won’t risk an explosion. You think you can push weak little me to the ground and cut my throat, right?”
Bingo. Sousuke’s hand was inching towards his knife. If he got in close enough, he had a good chance of winning in a physical fight.