p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It's just as he'd imagined. Hinata runs as fast as he can towards the central island, having to push past Souda when he tries to ask where he's going in such a rush. This means trouble, he knows it does, and believing the worst sends his chest shaking a shuddering with the recoil of his heart thudding so hard against his sternum that he thinks it might break./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The island scenery doesn't seem to move past him quickly enough. It's as if the world's moving in slow motion, and running doesn't come easily when your legs feel like lead. Dread feels like it is hardening in his blood - there are moments where he is unsure his heart is even still beating, and then others where he thinks it is running ten times as quickly as he is trying to. He thinks he's probably crying by the time he reaches the doors, but he doesn't care why, or about who sees. The air is thickening with swaying sheets of smoke and Hinata's hand is shaking as he presses his thumb onto the panel to his right./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The door to the facility slides open, and smoke billows out, galloping past him and over him and trying to go through him like some sort of wild stampede. Hinata, foolishly, goes to take a breath; heat sears the inside of his throat and he chokes, stumbling out of the way of the flow. Even from out here, he can feel the heat of whatever happened on his arms and face, but he knows he has to brave the unpredictable terrain inside the facility and investigate. There's no time to get the others, nor to visit what used to be the supermarket to fetch a gasmask. Hinata grabs the end of his tie and holds it over his mouth and nose to at least try to filter out some of the harsh smoke, before shouldering his way inside./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It's dark. There's broken glass on the floor - Hinata feels the crunch of it beneath his feet, and reckons the light fittings broke from the heat. He curses under his breath as he continues, wishing he'd thought to bring a light - the glow from a faraway flame is very little to find his way around by, but Hinata's visited the Avatar Suite so much in this last couple of weeks that his path there pretty much relies on muscle memory./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It's easy enough, at the beginning. As he moves from wall to wall, he finds the mild heat on his face intensify, as if he's leaning towards an open fire. Occasionally there will be a faraway bang, and he'll have to turn away from the incoming cloud of ash sent spiralling up from the floor./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Wall to wall, five steps forward, hand on desk, hand on chair, wall, wall-/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"-chest./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Laugh./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hinata's heel skids on ash as he stumbles back a little. The light is not enough to see a few inches in front of him, never mind to get a good look at the obstacle he's facing. It wasn't there the day before. And normal obstacles don't usually chuckle when they're hit. Instantly Hinata feels his heart begin to race in his chest, worse than before, and ragged breaths force their way through the tie and it's in this moment of panic that he realises he doesn't know where he is./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He's trapped./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="font-style: oblique;""Ah, Hajime. I was looking for you."/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hinata's foot creaks against a cluster of glass. There's movement ahead of him, as the other person moves closer. In his confusion, he manages to pick apart the situation, and realises that this is most likely the one who set off the fire in the first place./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The air reeks. His throat hurts./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I didn't think for a moment you'd be the one to come looking, though…not someone as powerless as you." Another step forward. Hinata can practically feel their sneer on the side of his face as he glances about feverishly. Even in the darkness he can sense his eyesight is fading. His head is swimming. His lungs feel like they're on fire. "Not that I'm disappointed! Your heroism saved some time."/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The light flickers on. Hinata is barely able to register this as strange before he notices that the light's not coming from above him, but directly ahead of him - it's bright. His company seems to be wearing some sort of headlight, and it's glaring right into his eyes./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He feels his knees buckle. The other person laughs again./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="font-style: oblique;""Hajime, you've done so well."/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"A step forward. A hand raised - there is a thick scar on the wrist, all the way around, decorated with tight black stitches that look like they've been in too long. Hinata feels the last gasp of clean island air leave his mouth, only to be replaced by thick ash; it feels like glass in his throat and like cement in his lungs. He can't speak. His legs are weakening./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"For a moment, the glare leaves his eyes, and Hinata gets a glimpse of who is in front of him. A pair of grey-green eyes glisten in the light from the fire - Hinata sees them through the panels of a black gas mask, and they watch him, scarily calm. The filter gives the person's breathing a hollow, dead sound, and there's blood on the side of the mask, dried quickly in the facility's arid heat. Their hair is messy, white like the ash settled delicately in it like the first snow of winter, and the face is pale and soot-streaked. The hand's nails are long and painted red - Hinata only sees it for a moment before it comes into contact with his throat. It doesn't occur to him to think back to the trial in the old building, when Naegi told them what a certain student had done to himself./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Your hope won, even faced with the strongest and darkest of despairs…"/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The fingers around his throat feel cold, and it don't move, don't close, but the palm is thrust into Hinata's neck; the movement forces his jaw open as he takes another heave of the putrid air. It feels like swallowing needles. His eyes water, his head hurts./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="font-style: oblique;""…I'm so proud of you."/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Feels sick. Wants to sleep. Far away, there's a loud groan, a snap, a thud - the building's falling apart, and Hinata doesn't know his way out. His fate rests in the hands of the fiend before him. That much is obvious./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"But he can't dwell on it much longer - he's so dizzy he can barely see, and his head pounds as if there's something inside fighting to get out. He can't breathe. His hands shake and the moment the other person's hand releases his neck he falls down, feeling his head hit the floor, feeling the heat of the usually cool metal, and then there's nothing else./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The last thing he hears, as he swims between wake and sleep, is quiet, wheezing laughter, floating over the smoke to him like a warning siren over the ocean…/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"-/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hinata wakes up./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"His hair is slicked back with sweat, and he's shivering. When he breathes in, he finds the air to be cool and fresher than it had been before, which is a relief - he breathes the air greedily, as if he's about to be exposed to the smoke of the facility again. As his senses gradually return to him, he realises he's lying snug in a bed, covers drawn high around his chest, arms neatly laid at his sides - one quick glance around confirms that he is in his room. Continuing to blink wearily and swallow past the dryness of his throat, he notices that someone is watching him. There's a blurry form hovering by the bed./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The voice comes from above him, and Hinata flinches at the sudden sound. It's almost reminiscent of Hinata's first day in the game, waking up with sand in his mouth and the sun in his eyes to someone leaning over him, waving a pale hand in his eyes and smiling. There was a hint of concern in his grey-green eyes, but he was calm, scarily calm, more so than any of the other students. Hinata had felt himself drawn to the boy, though while his serenity soothed his nerves ninety percent of the time there was always a nagging apprehension at the back of his mind (which was proven to be right)./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="font-style: oblique;"Hey, are you alright? /spanbr /...You sure look /I am, too, you know. We all /I mean...with all the crazy stuff that happened...br /...br /...Hey, are you listening?/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"But now there is no Komaeda talking to him, almost silhouetted by the brightness of the sun behind him. He can't feel the sunlight on his skin, nor can he smell the sea - just the distant impression of smoke and fire pressing into his mind and the coolness of the fan/window combination on his face - plus a pair of bright hazel eyes staring down at him. Hinata imagines that this is how a worm feels just before being captured by a bird, and because of this the word "threat" reads plainly in his mind and he tries to move away but his back hits the wall and a hand touches his wrist. It's cold, and the fingers are rough with callouses./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""You passed out." The gravelly voice reassures him somewhat, and Fuyuhiko lets him settle back into the pillow. The gangster's small form loiters at the side of him, and Hinata takes another tentative lungful of breath. Fuyuhiko's edges become a little clearer./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The air smells of smoke./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"His brow tightens above his closed eyes as he tries to remember what happened for him to end up like this. All he manages to recall is a rising column of dark grey, seeing it, running towards it - thinking it's the central island, it's the admin building, it's the Admin Suite, it's the span style="font-style: oblique;"Admin Suite/span- and he remembers the ash falling like snow. It burned his skin. There was a face, fire dancing in the eyes of it - a laugh, some mention of hope, a long-nailed but unresponsive hand seeming to reach for Hinata's throat-/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"-before Fuyuhiko interrupts and tells him his version of events./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""The facility…there was an explosion. A big one. We don't know what caused it, but we only just managed to check on the others, the smoke took so long to clear…" He pauses, hands in his pockets. "…a couple of them…they died. We're pretty sure, anyway. Sonia found Gundam first and there was blood span style="font-style: oblique;"everywhere/span, and Hiyoko was on the floor with a big ass gash on her head. And Nagito was nowhere to be found - plus, his pod was smashed up pretty bad. I think it's safe to say he's not salvagable."/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hinata goes to tell Fuyuhiko what he saw in the break, but his throat feels raw and dry. He doesn't think it's just the smoke anymore./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""You went in on your own and we had to fish you out. The power's down. It's been maybe three hours since the incident…which means we have twenty one hours left, if that Naegi guy was right."/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""…I…"/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Fuyuhiko nudges the chair out of the way with his foot, moving towards the door. "Anyway. Sonia said you should stay here for the time being. Get your breath back." And with that, he leaves. Hinata watches the door swing closed without turning his head - it's clear he's afraid, if only for the safety of the bodies left in the pods./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Though there's something else that nags him about who he saw in the smoke. Something about the hair, the eyes, the hand - even the gas mask fastened to their face. Of course he knows what that means, who it was - but his consciousness is suppressing it. He doesn't want to know. He tells himself it was all a dream and settles back down. The door clicks closed behind Fuyuhiko and Hinata is relieved to realise that he doesn't have to say anything./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Not yet./p