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Nagito’s laugh split the air, an uneasy undercurrent to the acrid sting of smoke and flame. Hajime couldn’t fight back the coil of fear in his gut as their eyes made contact across the destruction of the hotel lobby. Nagito’s pupils were blown wide, his face a rictus of madness. It seemed to seep out of him, tainting the air even further.
He had to pull his eyes away, forcing himself to focus on pulling Chiaki to her feet. She and Sonia had been close to him when the bomb went off, and he found the princess lying prone on the floor with her arms over her head.
“Sonia?” Hajime gingerly crouched next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Is it over?” Smoke stained her clothes and skin, and her eyes were wide with fright in her pale face when she looked up at him. “I have not been this close to an explosion before.” She was trying to maintain her usual air of dignity but was clearly on the verge of tears. “Is everyone else all right?”
“Me and Chiaki are fine,” he assured her, helping her up. “Akane and Fuyuhiko were close to Nagito when the bomb went off, so they should be….”
“I’m okay.” Akane stumbled over a pile of wreckage, grabbing onto Chiaki’s arm to stay upright. “Dammit, what the hell was he thinking?” Her hair was singed and her face was bruised, but she seemed otherwise uninjured.
“We should get outside,” Hajime said. The smoke was stinging his eyes, and he tugged the collar of his shirt up over his mouth and nose to try to block some of it out. “Where are the others?”
Monomi had appeared at some point to fret over them, but Hajime ignored her. Monokuma was gloating in the corner…but he ignored him, too. They had something else to worry about.
Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi had been to his left when the bomb exploded. The last thing he remembered before the world went white and that awful, ringing silence was seeing Kazuichi thrown clear of the explosion and landing somewhere close to the stairs.
Akane, still holding onto Chiaki, was bickering with Monokuma over Nagito’s threats, but Sonia followed Hajime into the swirl of smoke and flames. “It’s not safe over here,” he warned her.
“You’re looking for our friends,” she replied primly. “I am worried as well. Fuyuhiko has not fully recovered from his injuries, and Kazuichi was rather close to the source of the explosion.”
Kazuichi would probably be over the moon to learn that Sonia had been worried about him…but Hajime was never telling him. The guy was hopeless enough as it was.
“Wait a moment,” Sonia said, grabbing Hajime’s arm. She untied the bow from around her neck and fussed with it for a few seconds until she was able to tear it into two pieces. “It is not ideal, but it will be better than nothing,” she explained, handing one piece to Hajime before tying the other over her nose and mouth.
It was much better than trying to keep his face buried in his collar. Knowing Sonia, it was probably some sort of priceless scarf handed down through her family for generations. Hajime tied it around his face and gingerly led the way into the heart of the smoke. Sonia grabbed his hand to follow him, and they helped steady each other as they climbed over the remains of the hotel lobby to look for their friends.
“There!” Hajime spotted a dark shadow close to the floor and tugged Sonia after him as he made his way over to it. “Fuyuhiko?”
“Took you bastards long enough,” the blond spat back over his shoulder, but Hajime could hear the relief in his voice. “Come on, help me get this off of him.”
“Right.” Hajime let go of Sonia’s hand to hurry to Fuyuhiko’s side. He could just make out Kazuichi’s arm and shoulder, the rest of his body pinned under part of the collapsed wall. “Are you okay?” he asked as he started tugging at the beam Fuyuhiko was trying to pull free.
“Just peachy,” he grunted back. Hajime shot him a look…even through the smoke and ash he could see the blood spotting the front of Fuyuhiko’s shirt. Either he’d been injured in the explosion or some of his older wounds had opened up. Fuyuhiko caught him staring and scowled, his gaze furious through the soot staining his face and hair. His eyepatch had gotten knocked loose during the explosion, and Hajime could see the angry scar from the slash that had blinded his right eye.
“Later,” Fuyuhiko said, meeting Hajime’s stare with grim determination. “Let’s get this idiot out of here, then you guys can scold me all you want.”
“Right.” Hajime turned back to the beam they’d been working on. He managed to get his shoulder under it, and when he forced it up a few inches Sonia shoved a few smaller pieces of rubble under it to hold it up.
“We just need to lift this enough to pull Kazuichi out,” she suggested. “I can assist with this. Fuyhuhiko, can you focus on clearing the area around his head? I think his legs are pinned, but his upper body is merely buried.”
“Got it,” Fuyuhiko nodded. He had a piece of silk or satin wrapped around his mouth and nose—possibly the lining from his jacket—but he still stopped to hack a few smoke-laden coughs into the crook of his elbow.
Hajime shouldered the beam higher as Sonia tried to wedge it in place. It was heavy. His knee slipped more than once, and she had to duck away or brace the beam to keep it from falling back down. It was taking too long. Even with the makeshift masks they were wearing, smoke was burning their lungs. He narrowed his eyes, focused on holding the beam up, breathed shallowly. His chest was burning and stinging, and sweat was trickling down into his eyes.
Just as he felt his hands slip, another set of hands caught the beam just behind his. A feminine body pressed up against his from behind, his head all but resting on a pair of large breasts. “I got it, Hajime,” Akane grunted.
“Here you go,” Chiaki said, appearing beside him with a construction mask in hand. “We found these at the supermarket.”
He eagerly swapped the soot-stained piece of Sonia’s scarf for the mask Chiaki offered. While it did nothing for the smoke he’d already inhaled, it would do a better job of filtering out any more.
“We’re almost there,” Sonia called. Hajime squeezed under the beam, taking her place. He braced it across his shoulders as Akane lifted, and between the two of them they were able to lift it out of the way while Sonia and Chiaki aided Fuyuhiko.
Chiaki let out a shout, and Hajime glanced up in time to see her and Sonia dragging Kazuichi’s limp body out from under the rubble. Fuyuhiko trailed after them, hunched over with his arm pressed across his stomach.
“Get outta there, Hajime,” Akane called. He ducked away from the beam and scrambled free, reaching her side just as she let go of it. It crashed back down to earth, sending up a shower of smoke and sparks.
Kazuichi was conscious but dazed, blood oozing out of a cut across his forehead and out of one of his ears. Akane knelt beside him and easily swung him onto her back, despite his weak protests. “Let’s go!” she called to the others.
Hajime crouched down next to Fuyuhiko. “Come on.”
“In your dreams, you bastard.”
He rolled his eyes. Coming from Fuyuhiko, that was practically a term of endearment. “This whole place could come down. We’ve got to move.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Oh for the love of…” Akane dropped Kazuichi onto Hajime’s back, nearly knocking him over, wrapped an arm around Fuyuhiko’s chest to tuck him under her arm. “Fine. I’ll take the baby gangster; you take the crybaby.”
“I told you not to call me—”
Hajime tuned them out, trying to shift Kazuichi to a more stable position on his back. Kazuichi weakly wrapped his arms around Hajime’s neck and hung on as they started to move. “Sorry about this,” he whispered.
“Don’t mention it,” Hajime replied. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“’S all spinning.”
“You’re dizzy, huh? Yeah, that sounds about right.” Bleeding from the ear probably meant a busted eardrum. “Don’t puke on me, okay?”
Kazuichi groaned at the word, and Hajime smiled behind his mask. He could see clear air ahead of them now, Fuyuhiko and Akane arguing while Sonia and Chikia sorted through a pile of first aid supplies. Monomi was wringing her paws and hovering uselessly, but Monokuma was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Nagito. The thought of what they’d all been through…of the dark madness he’d seen in those eyes…made him feel cold all over despite the tropical climate and the heat of the flames around him.
“Hajime?” Kazuichi’s voice was weak, and Hajime shrugged him a little higher as he picked his way through the debris. “What do we do?”
“That’s easy. We stick together.” Sonia and Chiaki had noticed them now and were rushing their way with supplies cradles in their arms. “Traitor or not, we’re in this together. Right?”
“Yeah. Right.”
Hajime gently lowered his friend to the ground as Chiaki knelt at his side, already opening an antiseptic wipe to dab at the cut on Kazuichi’s forehead. Sonia pushed a bottle of cold water into Hajime’s hands and asked him to help her calm Fuyuhiko down—his wounds had most certainly opened, and arguing with Akane wasn’t going to do anything to help.
He followed her over, trying to help diffuse the situation before anyone else could get hurt.
Traitor or no traitor, whatever happened next…they were in this together.
They were going to beat this game and go home.