Smoke bsted out from the school as the rest of the third floor rammed into a fragile sed floor below. It wasn't enough to keep it whole and the walls exploded outwards uhe sudden stress. Debris fell into the first floor c everything in a mound uhe mask of clouds. The blown out dust bhe entire school grounds alerting all of the students and washing out screams.
Saki ran through the gray veil disregarding the danger until she tripped over a rge piece of rubble. Her colpse drew in the hopelessness. “Yuki! Yuki!” The particles in the air were drawn into her open mouth as she yelled, bringio a painful cough bent over.
“Yumi!”
“Yumi!”
The voices that called out became muffled partly by the noise of the colpsing school. Saki tried to look through the yers of dust to find who else was nearby. It was still too thick of clouds masking everything out for Saki to know. All she could do was listen out for the voices hoping that she was getting close as they grew louder. Eventually, a slightly dark form in the smoke appeared to her and reached out for them. She carried them out of the danger as well as her sense of dire could manage.
“Put me down!”
Saki struggled through getting kicked and spped by the girls. “I’m trying to help you! Stop fighting me!” Unfortunately, among all of their shouting Saki’s voice was drowned out. After another ki her ribs Saki sighed heavily and just ighem trying to get out as quickly as possible so that she could give them a piece of her mind.
The feet of the girls appeared first out of the smoke followed quickly by Saki. Once Saki knew she was breathing normal air again she dropped the two girls down on the ground. “Dammit!” She leaned in towards the girls bending over nearly to meet them in the fabsp; “What happeo being grateful for being protected!?”
“We didn’t ask to be protected!”
“Yumi’s still in there!”
“So is Yuki, but we ’t do anything right now!”
I exge of words, they all finally opeheir eyes to look at who they were yelling at. Kaede raised her arm in surprise to see that it was Saki and Katsumi followed a simir suit along with Saki. “You?!”
A final colpse of the se of the school pounded out through the ground. It pulled the three girls' eyes back to the smoke covered school filled with worry once more. Many of the other students began to gather around them uain about their fate.
“Yumi…”
“Will they be alright?”
“Yuki and Ayumi are with them…I hope…”
Chapter 73 – Dome of Safety
“…ugh…Yumi…” Yori tried to find his sister in his fusion. He was pletely covered in darkness, but there was the strange sehat he wasn’t as badly hurt as he should. His head still rang from the colpse making it difficult for him to focus. “Yumi?”
Yrasped around blind desperate to find his sister and praying that she was still alive. ‘Is she even around here?’ Not beirained by debris he was able to search around slowly on his knees cheg everything in his radius thhly before moving forward a little.
His hand ran into something on the ground that Yori scrambled to check quickly. “Yumi! Is that you?” A closer examination by his hands revealed it to be the fshlight that they had brought. The power had been cut in the school during the battle leaving the halls dark and the s dim. He fumbled around for the switch to check to see if it still worked. When it flipped on he was suddenly blinded by the dull beam. Yori aimed it out into the darkness looking at his surroundings.
Towards the ter he found his sister lying face down unscious. “Yumi!” He rushed over to her side thoughtlessly tossing the fshlight away. Yori lifted her up into his arms being granted a little light to check her for any blood or wounds. “Good no injuries…” He let his back bend a little as he sighed, relieving the tension.
Minutes slowly passed for him as he held on to her and began searg around their room. The walls that surrouhem were the rubble from school, but he couldn't tell a distance or shape from them. It seemed to almost be going on forever while being the exact same. He wasn't sure if it was the headache that he had still that was screwing with his senses or not.
As he examihe ground it began to e together in his mind. “It’s a perfect hemisphere, but how? It doesn’t make any sense. Rubble doesn’t just fall perfectly into a hemisphere…” Yori tio take in his surroundings, finding that he was at the ter of the space.
The clearing soon exhausted itself of ao the mystery leaving Yori to begin to question more about their situation. He ran another che himself for injuries as well as on Yumi, but found nothing. In fact, it worried him that apart from the ringing headache he didn't feel any pain. “How’s this possible? We fell three floors and were surrounded by brid steel. We should be beat up, but I don’t even have a scratch or bruise! What’s going on?”
Yori's sense of curiosity got the better of him. He gently put his sister ba the ground and reached out for the fshlight. The first test he made was for the height of the space, which granted him plenty of head room and then some. It took him several steps to bee in danger of hitting his head. , he tested the dition of the surface that could only be sidered a posite of random debris from the school’s structure. There were even a few chairs that he saw mixed in that were bent under great pressure and fttened ing to the shape that they were in.
Yori took a very cautious move with his hand towards the dome, retrag his hand several times before actually toug. “It’s real…” He measured his words out carefully with his breathing still fearing a colpse. “It’s almost like an arch where all of the pieces are held together by each other’s force, but removing one piece would make it all crumble away. We could’ve been buried if there had been one mispce stone…”
Boldness was found within the reassuring touch of the wall. Yori ran his palm down the surface taking in the feeling. It was pletely smooth with the only gaps or bumps where pieces were joiogether. He had never seen such a stru. The smoothness almost felt as though it had been pressed, pounded, bsted and smoothed to be created. ‘Something doesn’t feel right about this…’
There was a sudden uneasy feeling starting to build within him that realized it was impossible and had to have beeed by someone. Yori feared who could have do and for urpose. ‘Is this Hayash’s involvement? Or someorying to get to Hayashi through us? Another one of those strange fners? Yumi!’ He rushed bai’s side starting to feel the stress of his owions weighing on him.
“…sister…” Yori lifted his sister back up into his arms cheg on her dition once more trying to focus. For the time it was w for him, but it just exged oress for another.
As he focused his mind towards his sister, thoughts from the past began to stir. All of his tration was ohat it almost felt natural. He became lost in the memories that sifted through his eyes. ‘Today was the first time I’ve seen her so determined, even angry. She’s always been shy and a crybaby elling anyone how she feels until it was too te… It seemed to work very well when she was a child. So much that I couldn’t stand it…’
“…Hrmph…” Yori turned his head away walking out of the room leaving them behind. He stomped off to his room leaving his little sister alone i with their mother. “I do well and mother is happy. She does poorly and cries about it and mother is happy! Why does mother pay her more attention?!”
Little Yori, age eight, fell down against his bed slowly sliding to the floor. His hands balled up into a fist of frustration the more that he thought and pictured Yumi with his mother. “Does mother like her better than me?!” The momentary realization froze him through his bones. It tightened his muscles and racked his chest as it lingered inside.
Months passed in simir ses. Until, Yori walked out of the entrance of their house passing the kit. He paused when he saw his mother sitting at the table with her head dowing against her hands. It had been a on sight for him to see her looking down. “…mother…”
She looked up from the kit very slowly, almost like she was dead. “Could you check the undry before you go upstairs? Let me know if it’s ready to be dried, okay?”
Yave her a slow nod and silently tinued, not certain what else to do. The undry room was a small attat he stairs buried by a closet. An even hum of the washer still running gave him the ahat he was looking for. He started to turn away when the sound of a phing came muffled towards him.
It wasn't immediately familiar, not being the house phone, but he remembered that it was his father’s cell phone. “Oh he fot it. Someone from work probably o talk to him. I should let them know!” Yori leaned over searg for the ringing through the clothes until he found it and picked it up.
The phone was rge enough that he had to juggle it with both of his hands. He found the call button and raised it slowly to his ear. Yori was about to speak when a woman’s voice came through. “Hey honey! Last night was great! You think you get away again tonight?”
It took a moment for it all to click with him, but the sed that it did he dropped the phone in shobsp; Yori backed away from the pho wanting to believe what he had just heard. The woman’s voice tio echh the floor, fused and haunting Yori’s mind.
He stumbled back towards the kit looking at his mother suddenly with new eyes. She turned up towards him a little fused. “Is the undry ready?” Yori froze paralyzed for half a minute, not certain what to say to her. He could not look at her the same anymore, everything was different suddenly. Nothing made sense anymore to him. All he managed in the end was a shake of his head. “…oh…okay…”
Yori left back to the er by the stairs staring down at the phone. He tur off and put it back where he had found it. Afterward, he forced himself to walk up to his room.
‘It was then that my entire world ged for me. I realized the pain that mother had been going through alone. I saw how empty and terrible my attention starved attempts were along with silent aowards Yumi. I had no idea what I could do, but I was determio ge things… I was going to make up for what I had done aowards Yumi even if she never knew… I was going to be the brother that she deserved…’
His sister suddenly moved in Yori’s arms alerting him and startling her a little. Reag to the fall still, she tossed about screaming for her life. In her filing she hit Yori with the back of her hand. Eventually, she was forced to open her eyes from being shaken by Yori.
She pressed away into Yori arms, taken aback that he was safe before realizing her own safety. “Brother! You’re alive still!” His sister jumped up out of his arms hugging him tightly to assure for her own sake that he was real and partly out of relief. After a few minutes reality soon began to hit her as she looked around in the pht at their situation. “What’s going on? Where are we?”
Since his sister felt better and calmed dow her go to stand on her own. He took another look around the room as he prepared an answer. “Best I tell is buried under rubble from the school.”
“Buried? Are we trapped?” She choked the words a little when she began to examihe surroundings with him. Being inside a small pce did not worry her as much as the fusion. She tried to focus on her brother hoping that it would stop the lightheaded feeling that she was starting to develop. “…Brother…are you hurt?”
“No, nothing.” Yori turned around towards his sister suddenly feeling something in the back of his head whispering to him. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes…” She tried to sound ving for him, but her unsteady words were only the start of her failed attempt. His sister felt her knees buckle and thehing in her body went numb for a sed like her brain had been pletely cut off. She colpsed to the ground barely caught by Yori in time before it was too painful.
Yori could feel her limbs shaking as he pulled her close to him. “No, you’re not!” It felt like she had bee heavier suddenly in his arms f him to sit down before he lost trol. Fear quickly creeped into his heart the longer he stared into her pale eyes. “What’s wrong, Yumi! Where does it hurt?”
The fshlight’s beam seemed to be growing dimmer for his sister as darkness began to b her eyes. Lightheadedurned into a dull pain at the front of her head. Lines of wrinkles drew in around her eyes from the stabbiion that forced its way inside her head. “Brother?” She tried to lift up her hand, no longer able to see him.
He grabbed on to her hand so that she could feel him still. “I’m right here! Stay with me, Yumi!”
“Yori? I ’t see you…” She had at first felt him take hold, but even that feeling was starting to fade from her away. The numbness returned leaving her whole body dull like lead. Panic gripped her fast as the st threads of reality seemed to be falling away from her. “I ’t feel you, brother! What’s happening to me?”
“Sister! Please!”
His sister’s eyes closed slowly with the st bit of her strength faltering. “…brother…”
“No, Yumi! Stay with me!” Yori held on thtly shaking her as he could no longer feel her moving. He couldn't stop because if he did he would have to admit his fear. “Stay with me! Don’t leave me alone again! Yumi!”