Is she talking about me?! Moribe suspected me. Her suspicion may have escalated into a need to kill!
That’s the only explanation after Ukita just tried to do the same for no good reason! Moribe is very likely the one who carved her way into the room.
“…It’s dangerous here, Captain. Let’s escape while we still can,” Tachibana whispers in my ear when I don’t move.
“You sure? Isn’t Moribe like a sister to you?”
“I fear convincing her is impossible even for me in her current state of mind…,” she says in a heartbroken voice. I don’t argue with her on this one.
As I set off in the opposite direction, my boot scrapes the shiny floor, letting out a loud squeak.
“Who’s there?!” Moribe wails behind me. I can hear the sound of her running and the engine cutter motor fast approaching.
Tachibana and I sprint down the corridor as fast as we can go. We slip through the connecting passageway toward Area 3.
“Hurry, Tachibana!” I shout as I run. “We’re screwed if we don’t run away!”
“B-But, Captain…where should we run to?”
“Where?” I don’t have a good answer.
As long as Moribe has a running engine cutter, it won’t matter what room we hide in. Locking ourselves inside doesn’t do any good when she can cut through the door. And we can only run so far with Natsuhiko and Salyu on our backs before we run out of stamina and she catches up to us.
Time isn’t on our side either. My watch says it’s 2:46 pm. Only thirty more minutes to go until our AD runs out. Radiation or no radiation, my gut tells me we’re all doomed when that time comes.
Oppressive silence flows between us.
“Why…why did it come to this?!” Tachibana mournfully whispers. She continues speaking, more to herself than to me. “Chased down by the people we were supposed to save and called friend… How can we save others when we can’t even save ourselves?!”
This is the first time I’ve heard her complain since this nightmare started. It breaks my heart to see her hurting like this.
Up until now, we never gave up no matter what was thrown at us. We planned to save everyone, even if it cost us our lives in the process.
But is it hopeless at this point? Would it be better to just give up and die? That thought triggers a scene to flash into my head.
✦ ✦ ✦
☢☢☢☢☢☢☢☢☢☢
The scene takes place inside a strange building with sterile corridors just like the ones found in LABO. Crimson light illuminates the pitch-dark corridor. Fire covers the walls and ceiling. I’m walking through the gaps in the flames with my arm around some woman’s shoulders. Smoke fills my vision, distorting what her face looks like.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Watase, you can’t give up! Save dying for after you fight until the bitter end!” she shouts with her eyes firmly locked on the way ahead. Her words sunk into me with unshakable determination.
✦ ✦ ✦
☢☢☢☢☢☢☢☢☢☢
That was a waking dream that lasted but a moment. Her voice and face disappeared from my mind like haze blown away by the spring wind.
Wh-What was that just now?
I strongly believe that was a scene from my fractured memories—a fragment from my lost past. It’s a sorrowful and nostalgic memory that pulls me from the spiral of depression and gives me the courage to keep going.
“Tachibana…don’t give up,” I say, conveying the same hope-inspiring words to her. “We’re still alive. We have people to rescue. So let’s save giving up for after we fight…until the bitter end.”
“…Yes, sir.” Her voice is filled with the determination of someone trying to survive through the pits of utter hopelessness.
✦ ✦ ✦
▼ 2:48 pm
Area 3, Inner Ring
“…WE’RE going to search for an escape route,” I inform Tachibana when we arrive in Area 3. “Escaping outside is the only option with nowhere inside the facility being safe. We can still look for a way out.”
Tachibana gives me a hard look. “But we have been looking everywhere for an escape route since long before you woke up, Captain. I’m sure Commander Murakami and the people outside have been, too. Seeing as they haven’t broken their way inside to get us out, I don’t think there is anything we can do from the inside.”
“…It sure doesn’t look that way.”
I started looking for other ways out after the cargo lift stopped being an option. Meanwhile, other problems kept popping up one after the other in the process. Did I come across anything useful along the way?
That question triggers something I remember seeing. “Wait, come to think of it…!”
“Did you come up with something?”
“The pipes! Remember how there were thick pipes running along the engine room ceiling? One of those pipes brings in water from the nearby lake to cool the reactor.” I recall Ukita’s explanation. He said water is circulating through the pipe at high speeds and breaking a hole in it will flood all of LABO, but… “Doesn’t the purpose of that pipe become suspicious now that we know there’s no reactor?”
“It does…! But I don’t believe its purpose is a complete lie. Perhaps it’s used to cool off that large machine?”
“Crap. Then we still risk flooding LABO by opening it up? I wish there was a way to stop the water from circulating through it.”
“So do I… We might be able to come up with a plan if we knew what that machine was for.”
Her comment sparks another fragmented memory. “H-Hang on, Tachibana! I just remembered where I’ve seen that machine before!”
“You did?! Where?!”
“The engine room! It was in one of the machine manuals included in the terminal there! There was an image of that large machine on the first page!”
“I remember that too!” Tachibana had looked at that manual with me. “That manual may have valuable information that can help us! Let’s go check right now!”
Tachibana and I run even faster toward the engine room.