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The stairwell flew past him as he ran, all stone and steel and an air of terror, trapped behind it. Concrete crumbled under his boots, but Kaito knew he couldn't risk slowing down. Outside, somewhere behind the glass, he could hear the giant dueling robots rumbling through the streets – a sound he had grown to hate in those past weeks – before the echo of something huge collapsing almost made him deaf. The next building, the next piece of home that had fallen victim to Academia's chaos giants. Kaito gritted his teeth, hard enough to make tears well up in the corner of his eyes, but he kept running, dust in his lungs and time breathing down his neck. He had to get out of this building. Get down to the street.
Another tremor shook the skyscraper, an ominous sound of steel against stone that coursed through his entire body, throwing him off step. A ceiling lamp crashed to the floor in front of him, sparks and glass crackling between the rubble like fireworks. Kaito grabbed the railing, throwing himself over to the other side of the stairs and rushed on. Plaster was still trickling down, making it easy to slip on the stairs and breathing even harder.
Three floors down the stairwell just vanished below him.
Kaito stopped so abruptly his momentum almost brought him down. He latched onto the railing, catching himself just in time to prevent himself from falling. His heart was racing. The floor was at least twenty feet away. Way too deep to jump! He would probably break his legs and a few ribs if he was lucky, and something else entirely if he wasn’t.
He had to find another way.
Kaito spun around, frantically searching for another path that would lead him down safely. The elevator! He was at the door in seconds, wedging her fingers between the crack to push it open. The door groaned, jerking briefly, but then buckled. The shaft he was facing was no more inviting than the abyss in the stairwell, a bottomless glass cage leading to his potential doom, but there really was no other choice. The second stairwell was at the far end of the building. He would never make it there in time.
Determined Kaito grabbed one of the steel cables in front of him before pushing himself off the edge.
He didn't know how long he was climbing. Endless heartbeats in a second, constantly accompanied by the rumbling of destruction from above. When his boots finally hit the elevator car below, his muscles burned like fire and his fingers refused to move. With trembling arms, Kaito opened the emergency hatch on the roof to slip into the cabin. The doors were jammed. Something was blocking them from the outside. He had to put all his weight against it to move them, and when they finally gave way, the gap was so narrow he could only squeeze through sideways, ripping up the fabric on his shoulders in the process.
The stairwell didn’t look any better than the one above. The rubble had not only blocked the elevator, the entire stairwell was buried. He was stuck.
With his heart pounding wildly, Kaito turned to the window front, desperately letting his gaze dart down. The ground wasn't too far away anymore! Third floor, maybe. Second, if he was lucky. The building shook again. Now was not the time to think! He grabbed one of the fragments lying around and smashed it against the window. The glass shattered with a high-pitched screech. Splinters rained on the street. Kaito took one deep breath and jumped.
Although he was trying his best to catch the fall, the impact of the landing immediately forced all the air out of his lungs. His teeth clashed together, making his tongue bleed and his head spin. Pain flared up somewhere in his shoulder and one of his legs, but Kaito was too stunned to focus on the feeling for long. Plastic splintered from his duel disk, slicing his cheek just inches from his right eye.
For seconds Kaito just lay there, dazed, trying to gasp for air that wasn't there. His head throbbed. Colors, noises, his sense of direction, everything was mixed up. Blinking felt like someone was splitting his skull. The logical part of his mind spurred him to get on his feet. He was still way too close to the building! He had to get off the open road where he was easy prey for Academia's troops! But he could hardly breathe, let alone get up.
Somehow he managed to roll over on his side and take some pressure off his chest. The skyscraper above him creaked ominously. A dark, rumbling sound that he felt in the vibration of the floor more than he actually heard it. Again Kaito blinked against the dizziness in his head. He could see the building swaying. Just a moment later, the floors collapsed in an explosion of debris and rubble. A huge cloud of dust raced towards him, robbing him of his vision and making his lungs burn. He wanted to cough, but all he managed was a weak croak before his throat filled with ashes. His eyes were watering. Panting, he struggled for breath, but there was no air anymore and the realization hit him with sheer panic. He would suffocate.
Then someone grabbed him by his coat. With a jerk, Kaito was dragged upwards. The next thing he felt was the dull tug in his stomach and the wind in his face as he lost ground beneath his feet for the second time that day. The stuffy cloud of dirt and utter chaos, that had just swallowed him, cleared suddenly and Kaito greedily sucked in a breath again. His lungs groaned. Breathe!, the voice in his mind pleaded desperately. You have to breathe! But there was just a hollow sting in his chest. Shadows flickered at the edge of his field of vision, then everything grew dark.
When he woke up, he was lying on his stomach, face down on the floor. Earth rubbed against his cheek. Everything hurt. His skull was pounding, half from the lack of oxygen, half still from the painful landing before, but when he forced his lips apart this time, finally there was fresh air seeping into his throat. Kaito closed his eyes, grateful to feel the heart still beating in his chest and waiting for the fog to slowly dissipate from his senses so he could think again.
As he moved his head, footsteps rang out beside him. Groaning, Kaito blinked away the remnants of the daze still clinging to him, carefully looking up. The rich blue color he came to face with was without a doubt the jacket of an Academia uniform, and a new wave of panic surged through his body. Then he saw the shimmer of familiar silver hair that went with it and froze. The breath he had just found again got stuck in his throat. For four or five seconds Kaito simply stared at the silhouette, so eerily pale and delicate against the background of a city crushed to bits as if the person itself was only a ghost. Just the illusion of a memory, fooling his mind with bitter yearning.
"Chris ...?," he uttered hoarsely, barely loud enough to drown out the rustling of blood in his own ears.
The image flickered briefly as the figure moved, a stiff tightening of the shoulders, a cool look, but they were the same calm eyes that had always regarded Kaito with gentle benevolence and sometimes even with pride. It was Chris and suddenly Kaito feared he would just disappear on him again, just as wordlessly, just as ruthlessly as he had done the last time they had met. He didn't dare to blink as he struggled to get back on his feet. His arms were still shaking and a sharp pain flared up in one of his legs from the strain, but somehow Kaito still managed to lift himself up anyway.
Chris eyed him stoically. "It’s roughly 1.5 miles back to your camp," he announced and the distance in his tone of voice hurt. A few weeks ago it had been their camp and Chris had been one of the reasons why he had ever felt safe there. His mentor, a friend. And for a young, naive part of him, something silly romantic in between. Now the rough gesture with which he pointed towards camp was like a shove against his chest. Go away. Leave.
Kaito swallowed, trying desperately to block out the parallels that forced themselves upon him. The silence of a home that no longer felt like one. The burning in his palms on the floor after Chris had knocked him off. And that devastating finality in his gaze again and again when he had turned away to abandon him.
His body trembled. For an agonizing eternity, Chris just stared at him in silence, the same look he had used to observe a research object or a complex formula. Sterile. Analytical. Then a fleeting shadow crossed his face and some of the impassive hardness on his features broke. Before Kaito could really grasp the moment, Chris had turned his back on him again and they were back in the nightmare of his memory.
"If you can walk, you should be able to get to the stadium before night falls," he added quietly, before setting off decisively, away from the indicated direction of the camp.
Away from him.
"Wait. Chris!”
Kaito stumbled after him, awkwardly supporting himself on his good leg. His muscles tensed in protest and for a moment he was sure his legs would just give out under his weight, refusing to carry him any further, but they didn't.
That's it, Kaito - Chris whispered softly in his head. That's exactly the kind of willpower I wanted to see.
"Wait. Please talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about," Chris replied flatly. "If you want to ask why I saved you from that building, you'd better save your breath."
He didn't turn around, didn't even slow down. Kaito's entire body begged for him to stop, to go easy on himself, but he couldn’t ignore the parallel of their encounter that kept repeating itself in his head, couldn’t forget the panic in his chest and he couldn't ... he couldn't just stand there and let Chris disappear from his life again.
"Why did you leave?," he asked, trying and failing to suppress the vortex of conflicting emotions inside of him, constantly swirling and swishing and toying with the kind of fears he couldn’t fight. Chris’ figure right in front of him was just a faint reflection of the person he had once known, just as untouchable, just as unreachably lost as in his memory.
"Chris," Kaito pleaded again, helplessly. "What did you run away from? If I did something wrong, tell me!"
But he got no more answer.