Chapter Text
In the back of the ambulance, the steady rhythm of the siren was a distant hum in Hitomiko’s ears. She sat beside Nagumo, who lay on the stretcher, his leg bandaged but still bleeding slightly, he would probably need stitches. His face was tight with pain, but his eyes were far away, somewhere lost in the events that had just unfolded.
For a long while, neither of them spoke. The weight of everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the exhaustion—hung heavily between them. Hitomiko sat stiffly, her hands clenched in her lap, occasionally glancing toward the paramedics driving up front. However, her mind kept drifting to Hiroto, being rushed in a separate ambulance. She couldn’t be there with him, and it gnawed at her.
Hitomiko clenched her hands, unsure of what to say, but the need to understand what had truly happened ate away at her. She had only pieced together fragments, and so much was still missing. Finally, unable to stay silent any longer, she turned to Nagumo.
"Nagumo..." she began softly, her voice wavering. "I need to know what happened. From the beginning. I... I feel like I’m missing so much."
Nagumo didn’t answer immediately, his eyes focused on nothing in particular, lost in thought. The memories weighed heavily on him, and he seemed reluctant to relive them.
"If it's too painful or you don't want to tell me that's okay too. I'll understand."
But he knew Hitomiko had a right to know. She deserved to understand why Hiroto was fighting for his life right now. With a deep breath, Nagumo nodded.
“Alright,” he said quietly, still staring ahead. “It started when we went out to gather sticks for the fire…”
He began to tell her everything. How the group had been exploring around, collecting sticks and joking around. It was supposed to be just another part of their camping trip. Everything had seemed fine, ordinary even, until Kui stumbled upon the cave. She had called them over, and of course, curiosity got the better of them. Even Hiroto had been unsure about it from the start. He hadn’t wanted them to go in.
“Hiroto tried to stop us,” Nagumo murmured, his voice heavy with guilt. “He said we shouldn’t go in… but I didn’t listen. None of us did.”
Hitomiko’s heart sank. She could already feel the weight of what was to come in his voice, but she stayed quiet, letting him continue.
“We explored the cave,” Nagumo went on, “but things felt off. It was dark and deep, and the air inside was strange. We were about to turn back when I saw something further inside… something that made my blood run cold.”
Nagumo swallowed hard as if reliving the moment. “I saw… a body. They were hiding it. One of the bank robbers saw us because, before I knew it, I heard a gunshot.”
Hitomiko felt her breath catch in her throat as Nagumo paused, his jaw tightening. “We ran. We hid behind some boulders. And for a while, we thought we were safe. We kept quiet, hoping the robbers wouldn’t find us. They split up looking and we were able to come out of our hiding spot. It wasn’t until then that we realised…” His voice cracked slightly. “Hiroto had been hit.”
Hitomiko bit her lip, so Hiroto has been hurt from the start, it had obviously been his blood on the rock and that was used to write the message. She stayed silent her eyes wide with horror but she allowed him to continue.
Nagumo’s voice was shaky, but he forced himself to keep going.
“We didn’t know what to do. He tried to kept going, trying to help us figure a way out of the cave… but he got shot and was bleeding, badly. And it only got worse.”
The weight of Nagumo’s words hit Hitomiko hard, and she sat there in stunned silence, her heart pounding in her chest. She felt the anger rising within her—anger at the robbers, at the situation, and at the sheer unfairness of it all. But there was no room for that now.
Nagumo’s voice was low and heavy as he continued, the memory of those frantic hours replaying vividly in his mind.
“We… we tried to stop the bleeding,” he said, his gaze unfocused as if he were still back in the cave. “I used Midorikawa's jacket to press against the wound, but it wasn’t enough. It stemmed some of it but the blood… it just wouldn’t stop.”
Hitomiko clenched her fists, feeling the weight of every word. She had been trying so hard to find them, and meanwhile, they had been going through all of this.
“Hiroto… he kept worrying about you guys,” Nagumo said, his voice shaking slightly. “He kept saying that if you came looking for us, you wouldn’t know the cave was dangerous. That you might walk right into the robbers. Even when he was hurt, he was thinking about how to protect you.”
Hitomiko’s breath hitched in her throat. That sounded like Hiroto. Always thinking of everyone else, even when he should have been worrying about himself.
“So, we left the message,” Nagumo went on. “It was Hiroto’s idea. He could barely sit up, but he told Kui what to do. She wrote it in their code… that way, if the robbers found it, they wouldn’t destroy it. They wouldn’t know what it said.” He let out a small, humourless chuckle. “Hiroto was always one step ahead, even when…” Nagumo trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
Hitomiko nodded, understanding the unspoken words. She remembered the coded message, the horror as they realised it was written in blood. But it was the clue that had led the police to the cave. But knowing the cost of that message, how much pain Hiroto had been in while making sure it was written, made it all the more heartbreaking.
“He couldn’t walk,” Nagumo continued, his voice thick with emotion. “There was no way. So I… I had to carry him. The whole way.”
Hitomiko glanced at Nagumo’s leg, which was bandaged now but he had injured it in the crossfire. The sheer determination it must’ve taken to keep going, to carry Hiroto when his own strength was failing, was incredible.
“We could hear the robbers behind us,” Nagumo said, his voice becoming quieter. “They were chasing us, but somehow… we managed to keep ahead. For a while, at least.”
He paused, staring down at his hands. “I don’t know how I kept going, but I knew… I knew if I stopped, if I slowed down even for a second, they’d catch up, and we’d all be done for. That if we didn't get out of there we wouldn’t make it.”
Hitomiko was silent, absorbing everything. She could see now how much Nagumo had been holding in, the weight he had been carrying—not just Hiroto, but the fear, the guilt, the responsibility for all of them.
“You really pulled through,” Hitomiko said gently, her voice filled with empathy.
Nagumo shook his head, his jaw tight. “I don’t know if it was enough,” he whispered. “I really don’t.”
Nagumo let out another shaky breath as he continued, his eyes distant, lost in the memory.
"I could feel him getting weaker," he said quietly. "He was trying so hard not to show it—because, you know, that's how Hiroto is. He doesn't want to worry anyone. But it got bad, Hitomiko . Really bad. I could feel it when I was carrying him. His breathing was getting shallow, he was constantly shiver and I was terrified he would… that he would go to sleep and not wake up."
Hitomiko’s heart tightened as she listened, her throat constricting with emotion. She could picture it too clearly—Hiroto’s stubborn refusal to admit he was in pain, always putting everyone else first. She could only imagine how hard it had been for Nagumo to carry him, both physically and emotionally.
"We came to this cavern," Nagumo continued, his voice unsteady. "It had this weird egg statue in the middle and… and a riddle. The riddle was supposed to lead us to the exit if we could figure it out. But it made no sense to us. We couldn’t solve it, not with everything going on, not with Hiroto… like that."
He swallowed, his eyes full of guilt. "I tried to keep him talking, to keep him awake, but he was slipping away from us. And then… then he solved it. He solved the riddle, I think. But he passed out right before he could tell us the answer. We tried everything—everything—to wake him up, but he wouldn’t… he just wouldn’t wake up."
Hitomiko squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to keep her own emotions in check. She couldn’t imagine the fear they must have felt, watching Hiroto slip further and further away from them, knowing that time was running out.
Nagumo’s voice cracked as he continued. "I didn’t know what to do, Hitomiko . None of us did. Midorikawa was panicking, Kui was trying to keep it together, and I… I just kept carrying him, hoping we could figure out the answer before it was too late."
He shook his head, his expression one of deep regret. "We were running out of time. If the robbers caught up... we were done for."
Nagumo took a deep breath to collect himself before continuing.
"After Hiroto passed out, we were lost. We had no idea which path to take. There were five, and we just… picked one at random. We didn’t know what else to do."
He ran a hand through his hair, his brow furrowed in frustration. "But the path we chose—it turned out to be a dead end. We were stuck. And that’s when the robbers came to the cavern. We could hear them, their voices echoing through the cave as they started checking the other paths, one by one. It was only a matter of time before they found us."
Hitomiko ’s heart pounded as she listened, picturing them trapped in the cave, knowing the robbers were getting closer.
"They left one of their guys behind," Nagumo continued. "He stood guard in the cavern with a gun, waiting in case we tried to sneak past him. We were sitting ducks. We had to figure out the riddle before they got to us, but it was taking too long. We kept going over Hiroto’s hints—'と,' 'path of the dragon,' 'egg'—but none of it made any sense."
Nagumo’s frustration was palpable, and Hitomiko could see the toll the situation had taken on him.
"It was Midorikawa who figured it out in the end," Nagumo said with a small, almost incredulous shake of his head. "I don’t even know how, but he did. He said something about chess, and the fifth path being the right one. I didn’t understand half of what he said, but he was confident. He was sure Hiroto had solved it, and we just had to trust him."
Hitomiko could picture Midorikawa in that moment, the determination in his eyes.
Nagumo’s voice softened. "We had to distract the guard somehow. So we picked up some stones and started throwing them, just to make noise. He laughed at us, thought we were wasting our time. But what he didn’t realise… was that the noise woke up the bats. They swarmed down on him, and that was our chance. We ran."
He exhaled deeply, his expression tight with guilt and relief. "We made it to the fifth path. It led to the exit, just like Midorikawa said. But by then, the robbers were right behind us. I could barely keep up because I was carrying Hiroto, and…"
His voice trailed off as the memory of what came next hung in the air. Hitomiko already knew how close they’d come to disaster. But hearing Nagumo recount it, the sheer desperation of it all, made it feel even more real.
Nagumo's voice faltered as he continued, the weight of everything pressing down on him. “They shot at us… and the bullet hit my leg. I fell. I tried to keep going, but… I couldn’t. And then he… he went for Hiroto. Not me.”
Hitomiko could see the pain etched on his face, a pang of guilt he was struggling to keep at bay. He stared at the floor, unable to meet her eyes as he recounted the next part.
“He used him—Hiroto—as a bargaining chip. Held him up a gun to his head, and demanded that Kui and Midorikawa come back. And they were going to… Midorikawa especially, I could see it in his eyes. He couldn’t leave Hiroto behind, and I don’t blame him. I would’ve done the same. But then the police showed up.”
He rubbed at his face roughly, as if trying to scrub away the memory. “And you saw what happened after that…”
A single tear slipped from Nagumo’s eye, but he quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand, his jaw clenched tight. “Fuck,” he whispered under his breath, his voice cracking just slightly as he swore.
Hitomiko’s heart ached for him.
But Nagumo didn’t respond continue. He just stared ahead, jaw tight, lost in the memory of everything that had happened. The silent tear on his face said more than his words ever could.
The silence hung heavy in the ambulance, broken only by the occasional hum of the engine and the rhythmic beeping of the machines. Nagumo sat there, his eyes distant, as if he'd relived every harrowing moment in vivid detail.
After a long pause, Nagumo spoke again, his voice hollow, devoid of the strength he'd shown earlier. "And that's what happened to us... your turn, Hitomiko."
Hitomiko’s breath hitched in her throat. She hadn't been expecting him to turn the conversation back to her. She had been so focused on what they had gone through—on the horror of it—that she hadn’t even begun to think about her own experience. But now, with Nagumo staring at her, waiting for her story, she had no choice.
She swallowed hard, her thoughts racing, trying to organize the chaos of emotions she'd felt since she realised the kids were missing. "It started when... when we realised you hadn’t come back. We waited for a while, thinking maybe you'd gone off the trail, but then the sun started setting, and we knew something was wrong."
Nagumo's gaze shifted to her, tired yet curious. He was listening.
"We organised a search party, but we didn’t find anything. Nothing except that message—Hiroto’s idea, wasn’t it?" She managed a small, shaky smile. "We couldn't read the whole thing, but Reina deciphered the code and we knew it was serious. The police were called, and I was just... terrified. You were all out there, and I had no idea what was happening."
Hitomiko paused for a moment, the weight of it all settling in her chest again. "I kept imagining the worst—every possibility, every horrible outcome. When we finally tracked you down, seeing you all in that state… God, I wasn’t ready for that."
She stared out the window of the ambulance, her mind drifting back to those tense moments when the police had arrived at the cave. The flashing lights, the shouting, the glint of the gun—it all played in her mind like a nightmare she couldn't escape.
"I should have gone looking for you sooner," she admitted, guilt gnawing at her. "I should have found you before it got that bad. But I... I wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t find you all quick enough..”
Nagumo looked at her, his expression softening. "You got the police. If you hadn’t shown up when you did..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It could’ve been a hell of a lot worse."
Hitomiko bit her lip, holding back the tears that threatened to spill. She wanted to believe him, wanted to think she’d done everything she could. But the guilt still sat heavy in her chest. She couldn't help but feel like she’d let them all down.
"Maybe," she whispered. "But it still feels like I failed."
Nagumo didn’t respond, his eyes closed for a moment as he rested against the seat. The pain and exhaustion were catching up to him.
Hitomiko reached out, placing a hand on his arm. They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of everything crashing down on them. There was nothing more Nagumo could say to make sense of what had happened, and nothing Hitomiko could do to turn back time. But at least now, she knew the full story—the heart-breaking, terrifying truth of how they had ended up here.