[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/h5xf31C.png[/img][/center][hr][i][b]//Day 1 | Location:[/b] Nameless Forest - Lakeside[/i]
[sub][@AThousandCurses][@baraquiel][@Cu Chulainn][@Nakushita][@Yankee][@Vertigo][/sub]
It was a messy situation, certainly. But for Maki?

[b]“Asshole,”[/b] she said, a scolding edge digging into her voice. The girl kicked Duncan in the calf with her injured foot, a strike that he hardly felt and a strike that she [i]definitely[/i] felt, but Maki knew how to bear the pain. [b]“Was pretty obvious that Shun had feels for Yuudai since last year.”[/b]

Haruko was more hesitant to chastise her boyfriend. It wasn’t a matter of right or wrong here. It was a matter of emotions flaring up and situations that had no clearly correct answers. So all she could do was flash a grateful smile towards Maki, as Tsubasa strode on by, brushing past the three of them.

She didn’t spare Masato a glance, didn’t acknowledge Duncan.

She simply strode on after Shun, Ayana accompanying her. The two of them broke through the brush quickly enough, finding the reticent rider where she was, and while Ayana spoke, Tsubasa sat down instead. Right beside Shun, hugging her legs against her chest.

Right.

Yuudai had a childhood friend. A fellow child of a rice farmer’s family. One that pursued the arts the same way he had, but in a different field.

A sigh escaped Tsubasa. There wasn’t much she could say, not when she wanted to fold in onto herself instead. She rummaged through the pocket of her skirt instead, pulling out a squashed ball of mochi wrapped in plastic. It was warmed by body heat. A day old.

[b]“Here. Eat up.”[/b]

Rice, pounded to mush, but rice all the same. They could have meats from the beasts they slew, vegetables from the foraging they did, fish from the lake they’d dive in, but rice. Rice was so far away.

[b]“Thank you for caring for him, Shun.”[/b]

The three spent some time like this, in a forest too peaceful to be the forest that claimed the life of a loved one.

...

Panic flashed, Asahi’s voice replacing the guilt and the anger that flooded the atmosphere with a pronounced fear instead. Sasuke was fading, and Asahi, who had managed to pull Tsubaki from the brink, wasn’t able to do the same here. There was something missing, a piece that his own powers, however fading they were, could not replace, and he was floundering now.

Masato’s gaze caught Tsubaki’s and, despite the paleness of her own complexion, she still had enough presence of mind to shout out, [b]“Clear out and give them space! Juro, Hiroshi, take off Sasuke’s shirt!”[/b] Haltingly, the young woman rose up, making her way over, and Akito broke away from his mental deathmatch with Kogen a second time to help her over. There were no exchange, not even any emotion, shared between the two of them, and he scattered soon after.

[b]“It’s internal bleeding,”[/b] Hiroshi said, as Juro unbuttoned Sasuke’s shirt. Ugly splotches of dark purple marred the martial artist’s chest, and the way his chest rose with each breath made it clear that his ribs weren’t shaped the way they ought to be. [b]“We don’t have the tools to deal with that.”[/b]

The implication was clear enough. He was going to die.

Tsubaki fixed the shark-toothed boy with a glare. [b]“Don’t say that.”[/b]

[b]“Situation’s bad, is what I’m saying.”[/b] It was almost callous, his shrug, but perhaps that was the difference in attitude between a scientist and a careworker. Emotion could not influence his own analysis. Perhaps the ‘magic’ that dwelled within Masato and Asahi could accomplish something, but that was a wild card still. They knew too little.

They knew nothing, really, except for the fact that they were [i]still[/i] incredibly lucky.

Except…except…

[b]“W-what about Yuki?”[/b]

Yukiko called out to them, her gray eyes pleading. If Sasuke couldn’t be saved, did that mean Yuki couldn’t be either? Was that it? Had Asahi's healing of Tsubaki just been a once-in-a-lifetime miracle, an overlapping of unlikely probabilities?