Northern Cross Pretty Cure Episode 5
[TW: vehicular accident, injury descriptions]
Opening song: Onegai Precure, Northern † Cross!
Crisp, cold, blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. Barely a breeze. A perfect Sunday to go flying.
Miyu Oshima and her father, Naoki, sat in his four seater prop plane on the tarmac at Mizuwa airport, awaiting clearance to take off.
Miyu trusted that everything was in order by this point; they had each gone over the checkout individually, as was their custom, but still she watched as her father eyed each gauge, button and lever, mouthing their function and position as he did. They were correct, of course. She could see that in her father's relaxed features. The only moves Miyu made were to adjust her sun visor and give the yoke a jiggle back and forth. The yoke in front of her father's seat jiggled as well, and they exchanged sideways smirks. Initially Miyu's way of signifying her boredom with waiting to take off, the jiggle was now their personal, inside joke.
At last, their headphones crackled with good news. "JO6946, this is tower. You are next in line. Please taxi to runway two. Over."
Naoki sat up straighter. "Roger tower. Thank you." Then he turned to his daughter and said, "Here we go!"
"Finally!" she responded, with mock annoyance. Miyu placed her hands in her lap and wedged her feet against her seat while Naoki maneuvered the plane down to the end of the runway. The tiny plane was a tight fit for most people, but especially for Miyu. Simply put, she was just a big girl. The band on her headphones sometimes brushed the roof of the cockpit and her elbow rested on the door.
"JO6946, you are cleared for takeoff," came the familiar voice of the air traffic controller, seated in a room at the top of the high tower on the opposite side of the airfield.
"Roger, tower, and have a nice day," Naoki replied. He casually read off some final items, which Miyu confirmed before they began. The engine grew louder as Naoki pushed the throttle forward and the plane began to inch forward. The craft picked up speed and soon enough, Naoki and Miyu pulled back on their yokes simultaneously, changing the geometry of the wings, and causing them to produce lift. The front wheels left the ground, followed by the rear, and finally they were airborne.
Runway two of Mizuwa airport faced east-west, with arrivals landing from the landward west and departures, such as Naoki's prop plane, taking off over an industrial section of town and quickly passing over the Pacific Ocean.
The view from the cockpit as they rose was endless sky, which eventually intersected with endless water. When they banked right, Miyu could almost look straight down out of her side window into the ocean. The plane righted again and they passed back over land, rising over the increasingly smaller buildings of Mizuwa city. Miyu liked to pick out some she knew; the tall office buildings downtown, the stadium, the train station, her school and her house, which was more of a good approximation since by that time, they were high enough that individual houses were almost microscopic.
Today, Miyu and her father had planned a southerly route, taking them down the coast, turning west, returning over the low mountains inland and finally returning back to the airport. Even though this was one of their standard routes, the view changed with the seasons, making each trip unique.
Buildings gave way to barren rice paddies, which in turn yielded to the expanse of forest, and the small plane turned further inland. Below them, empty branches revealed secrets hidden in the summer: a stream bed; a rocky outcropping, once jagged, now worn down by time and the elements; a herd of deer.
The plane's tail jerked upwards with a hissing, piercing, tearing, scraping explosion. Miyu screamed in surprise and fear, and Naoki fought with the yoke to bring the plane level again. She turned around in her seat and saw a hole; a large portion of the rear of the fuselage had be torn away. The tail and rudder remained, though their functionality was questionable.
"Miyu!" Naoki shouted over the rush of air around them. "I need you to help me pull!" Miyu grabbed her yoke and pulled back, following her father's lead. The plane was completely without power, but being an older, less expensive model, all the linkages were physical, so they were not reliant on electricity. Beyond the unmoving prop rose a horizon too high for safety, and both occupants of the plane struggled against the forces of physics and unresponsive machinery.
Miyu's mind was in emergency mode, which was a strange feeling. Nothing seemed real, exactly, except maybe for the fear. Her hands were wrapped so tightly around the yoke that she could not even feel her fingers. The spear-like branches of the bare trees were rapidly approaching, and though Miyu and her father managed to slow their descent, the forest extended solidly in every direction as far as they could tell.
Father and daughter looked at each other, both knowing their fate, and linked hands before the first tree tops struck the plane.
Miyu knew she was conscious, that much was clear. Everything else was a blur. Pain came first, then sounds, and though she could not tell which direction was up, her vision came into focus. She was still strapped into the seat of the plane, which was always a tight fit, but the sheet metal around her had been bent inwards from the impact(s). On the side, at least. Above(?) her head, the roof of the cockpit was missing and she could see trees growing at a strange angle. Miyu raised her right hand to brush some of her long, black, now tangled hair out of her face, but when she touched her head, an intense, piercing pain shot through her hand causing her to cry out. She clutched at her wrist with her left hand, as if the pressure would relieve the pain. When she could finally unclench her jaw and blink away the cold, wet flecks of tears which clung to her eyelashes, a shock went through her body as she finally saw what was causing her so much pain. Shards of fine bones pushed through her skin on the back of her hand and her fingers, one bent in an entirely unnatural direction.
A thought came, unbidden, to her head, (How will I hold a microphone?) But then she told herself, (No, as long as I'm alive, I can become an idol,) and pushed that topic aside. She had to survive now. (Dad?)
To her left, or below her, Naoki lay still, also strapped into his chair.
"Dad!" Miyu screamed, hoarsely. She reached over with her good hand and touched his arm. His brow furrowed briefly, but he did not respond otherwise. That movement was a good sign, though; at least he was still alive.
Miyu looked around and finally got her bearings. The fuselage of the plane, or most of it, at least, laid on its left side on the forest floor. With her good hand, Miyu managed to unbuckle herself, but when she moved her legs, she was greeted with terrible pain again. Upon inspection, her right foot was partially trapped between the outer sheet metal of the plane and the footwell. Moving it proved more painful, so she sat back a moment, breathing heavily. She experimented with trying to move her pinned foot again with identical results.
"No," she said, weakly. "No, no no!" She was trapped, and panic began to set in: Miyu's pulse raced and she needed to get out now, but her foot prevented that. "No!" she shouted, but not in panic, but at herself. She shut her eyes tightly and concentrated on breathing.
(I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive, there's hope, I can get out of here!) She filled her lungs with air again and held it. The subsequent release felt like stress leaving her body. Her eyes opened again. There was not enough space for her to kick with her left foot, so she planted it against another section of the footwell and yanked her right foot out. Miyu let out a scream of pain which dissolved into crying as she grasped at the wounded limb. But she was free now, and once the crying had subsided, nearly tumbled from her seat when she tried to move. Somehow, though, through a long and not painless process during which shattered glass and jagged metal gouged her skin, Miyu managed to extract herself from the wreckage and sat with her back against a tree to recover and let the pain recede.
Sitting around would do nothing for her, though, so, using her right arm to staunch a mild but frightening laceration on her stomach, Miyu rose and hobbled back over to the plane to check on her father. Naoki was still breathing, but also still out. With a shattered hand and crushed foot, Miyu was not going to be able to get her father out of the plane, even if she knew what to do after that.
The sun was high in the cold sky; Miyu checked her phone, which still worked, to find the time to be around noon. There was still plenty of time left before the sun went down. The phone did have some signal, but it was so little that it almost did bit register. Miyu tried calling 119 anyway, but the call would not connect.
There was an emergency kit in the back of the plane, or was, at least. Miyu was in luck, for it was still latched to the side of the fuselage when she looked. Whatever had happened... had... missed...
"What?" Miyu muttered to herself as she looked more closely at the damage to the tail section. There appeared to have been some kind of explosion, though why, Miyu could not say. Nothing volatile was kept back there. Miyu was no expert on explosives, but the damage seemed peculiar. Parts of the twisted sheet metal looked as if they had melted; something that did not appear likely in such a fast acting explosion. Not only that, but the areas around the melted metal had a red stain or tint to them.
Detective work was also not helping, nor was it getting any warmer, so Miyu awkwardly opened the emergency kit and first removed the reflective blanket. Walking back to the other side of the plane, she gently tucked it in around her father in his pilot's seat. Miyu kissed his head and returned to the kit. There was a myriad of medical supplies within, but Miyu did not have the knowledge to use all of them, so she tried to patch up some of her wounds as well as she could. There was no water present, otherwise she would have taken four or five of the painkillers as well.
Miyu fished her phone out of her pocket again; 72% battery left.
(Let's turn some of this off. I have to save my battery life,) she thought. Miyu lowered the brightness and disabled the wireless, but before during the GPS off, she looked at the built-in map application.
(About 40 km south of Mizuwa... But there's another town three or four km east...) Miyu looked at her hand. (Even if I was uninjured, that would still be way too far to carry dad... Maybe someone saw our heard the crash.) There was another feature on the map, though; a small road, about one km east. Miyu kicked leaves away from a patch of dirt, squatted down and drew a simple map of the area with her finger, marking the road, town, Mizuwa and magnetic north. Noting nothing else of interest in the immediate vicinity, Miyu switched the GPS off, put the phone to sleep and returned it to her pocket.
(Dad...) Naoki was still breathing when Miyu checked on him.
Contained in the emergency kit was a flare gun and three flares, which Miyu removed.
"Firing it towards the road would make the most sense..."
(But it's such a small road. Who knows if anyone's driving it...)
"Still, what if I got closer?"
Miyu returned to her father with the flare gun and one flare.
"Dad, I'm going to signal for help," she said, trying to sound brave. "I'll be back." On second thought, she picked up the other two flares and managed to stick them in her right pocket with her left hand. Tears dripped from her face onto the dirt map as she rose.
(Dad,) she sniffed.
"No, I can't - no, I can do this! I can! I have to..." She gritted her teeth and started off at a 90° angle to the line representing north she had drawn on her map.
Every so often, Miyu would pause, pick up a sick and plant it upright in the ground to mark her path. Twenty-three sticks later, the trees parted into a small meadow. Miyu checked her phone again.
"Maybe!"
The sight of a single bar of signal made Miyu's heart leap, and she clutched the phone to her chest.
(Thank you, God!)
Miyu dialed 119 and held the phone to her ear, anxious that it would connect. After a moment, she could hear a dial tone beneath the crackling static.
Someone picked up.
"What is your emergency?" is what Miyu assumed the operator said, from the pieces of speech that made it through.
"Oh, thank you! Can you hear me?"
At first there was silence, but then the operator responded. It sounded like something about a bad connection.
Miyu held the phone with her thumb and index finger and practically shouted into the it. "Me and my dad were flying and our plane crashed! He's hurt real bad and we're out in the woods! About forty kilometres south of Mizuwa-" The name of the other town escaped her. "There's another town like four kilometres east of here. Um," (What else?) "Call sign JO6946... uh, oh! I'm going to fire a flare in a few minutes! Um," But the static had stopped, and when Miyu looked at her phone, it only displayed the home screen. "I hope they heard me."
Miyu let her hand drop to her side after putting the phone to sleep. She looked around the clearing, but there was not much to see besides brown trees and yellow grass, so she returned the phone to her pocket and set the flares and gun down. Carefully, she loaded one into the chamber and stood, frowning over the fact that she would be firing with her off hand. Not that her dominant hand had any experience firing, but it still felt awkward.
The clearing was quiet aside from a light breeze rattling dry leaves when Miyu raised the flare gun east, at about a sixty degree angle, and pulled the trigger. She yelped, startled at how loud it was, and the flare burned a red arc over the trees before burning out as it fell. Miyu's eyes followed its path until it had disappeared.
"So that's that," she said aloud, and spent a minute debating whether she should return to the plane or head for the road. The sun was still high in the sky and the road was not far, so Miyu crossed the clearing and continued east through the woods.
"I thought that red light indicated that there was some Chaos Energy nearby, but now I see that I was mistaken."
Miyu stopped at the sound of the voice. A voice! Someone was here! Miyu looked around, but any hope of a rescue fizzled like the flare when she found the voice's owner. A white figure moved behind the trees, causing a shiver to run up Miyu's spine and her hair to stand on end.
(A ghost?)
But Miyu was not so lucky, as out stepped an impossibly tall and lanky humanoid creature with a short snout filled with razor sharp teeth, and stubby, blunted horns on its head. And it was completely white; not only its skin, but the tight fitting military uniform it wore, too, were the purest white. The only blemish that could be discerned was that the creature's eyeballs were solid black.
Miyu was frozen in place. A ghost would have been terrifying (or exciting), but this being confused her. Before she could stop herself, the words were already out of her mouth: "What are you?"
The thing smirked, white teeth showing through white lips. "I am Ragim, the White Dragon; the third strongest warrior of the Chaos Dragons."
Miyu was about to respond, but she only got her mouth half open before a bright orange blur swooped down and landed between herself and Ragim.
"Get away from her, Ragim!"
Standing amongst the fallen leaves was a bird; its safety-cone orange wings outspread aggressively, and head cocked back on its long neck, as if to strike.
Miyu was not one hundred percent sure this was happening.
The white dragon stopped before the bird. "Gliese. Imagine my surprise when I thought you dead."
"You didn't finish the job. That will be your fatal mistake," said Gliese.
Ragim put the back of one hand up to her mouth and laughed. "Do you think that will be the case? Shall I finish it now?" The dragon took one step forward; Gliese one step back.
"Leave, Ragim." Despite the dragon standing three meters tall over a half meter bird, Gliese stood her ground, but Ragim looked past her to Miyu.
"Well, I had been planning on letting you go, you're really of no use, after all, but if you're with the swan, then I'll have to kill you instead."
A sudden attack of nausea and dizziness struck Miyu and, unprepared, she collapsed to the ground.
"Ragim!"
From her position on the dry leaves, Miyu saw the orange swan launch herself at the dragon, only to be simply batted away and land in a crumpled heap.
Miyu shut her eyes tight and held her good hand to her mouth. (What is going on? What is happening? I can't die now! I can't disappoint all my future fans! I haven't even gotten to sing yet!)
"Take this!" Miyu opened her eyes, disoriented for the second time today, to see her field of vision filled mostly with orange. Gliese stood in front of her, holding something out to her with one wing, the other hanging limply by her side. "Take it! Hold it above your head and say 'Precure Take Flight!' You'll transform into a Pretty Cure, your wounds will be healed, you can fight this thing and live!"
Without questioning, Miyu grabbed at the item Gliese held twice before she got a hold of it. Immediately, Gliese jumped and flapped into the face of the dragon, who had been advancing while she had been giving Miyu instructions. Miyu rolled away and got up, planting her knees on the ground in a wide stance for stability, then held the item up and said the words.
"Precure Take Flight!"
Out of complete blackness, the silhouette of a large figure appeared. She held her hands in front of her and tapped out a beat with her foot: 1, 2, 3, 4, and on four, confetti cannons fired on either side of her, sending purple sparkles and paper scraps everywhere and spotlights illuminated the figure. Clad in a sweet Lolita skirt and blouse with a bonnet keeping her long, black hair back, all purple with tiny orange, red and yellow accents, and a swan brooch pinned to the chest, she stepped forward, bent over and waved with both hands as spotlights illuminated her.
"Hiiiii~ Flying on wings of tomorrow! Cure Gienah!"
"OH MY GOSH IT'S SO CUTE!" Cure Gienah shouted as she examined her outfit. She twirled and her skirt poofed out. "Oh!" Gienah felt completely different from how she had just moments before. Fear, nausea, dizziness, even pain, all gone, forgotten as if they were years ago. Ragim and Gliese stared at her, taken aback by her outburst. "Sorry!" she said, rubbing the back of her head. "I just got so excited by- No wait! I'm not sorry!" Gienah planted her feet, put one hand on her hip and pointed her finger at the dragon, who held the swan by the neck. "Who are you to trample on the dreams of a young maiden's heart? There's no way I'll let you get away with this!"
The three characters; dragon, swan and magical girl started at each other in silence.
"Is this something you've been practicing?" Ragim said, without humor.
"Maybe! An idol has to be an actress as well as other things!"
Ragim tossed Gliese aside and advanced. "Well isn't that just cute."
"I know!" Cure Gienah gushed. "I don't think it's Baby, but this color? It could be Angelic, or I guess maybe Alice... Wait, that's not what you were talking about, was it?"
"No," was the straight faced answer.
"Men just don't get it," Gienah said. But in response, those black eyes somehow glowed, and Ragim growled. "I am also a female!" she shouted through dangerously pointed teeth, then rushed Gienah.
"Cure Gienah! Dodge!" Gliese yelled from the ground.
Gienah spun to one side and the dragon passed by harmlessly. "Woah!"
"She's coming back!" Gliese cried. "Look out!"
Cure Gienah avoided Ragim's attack once more, and smiled.
"It's like a dance! You wanna dance, then?"
Ragim clenched her jaw and snarled. "Forgive me, Gliese, I should have listened to you and killed you first!" The dragon ran towards the fallen swan, but Cure Gienah moved to intercept, much more quickly than she expected, and slid right between the two, just before Ragim was about to grab Gliese.
"It's impolite to turn down a dance!" Gienah said, and kicked Ragim in the shin. She turned and scooped up the orange bird while Ragim roared in pain and held her leg.
"Cure Gienah, you'll have to do more than that to stop Ragim. Have you ever actually fought?"
Gienah set Gliese down and turned to face her opponent. "No, but it can't be that hard, right? They do it all the time on TV."
Gliese's beak hung open in surprise at this newly appointed Cure's attitude while that very same Cure charged the dragon. Gienah traded punches and kicks with Ragim; both blocking the other's attacks. She spun to one side and kicked Ragim in the back of the knee, causing the dragon to lose balance. In that moment, she switched feet and kicked Ragim again, this time in her abdomen. Ragim stepped back to recover and held one hand over where the kick had landed.
"How are you so fast? I thought the bigger the human, the slower they were!"
Cure Gienah stared at Ragim, astonished. Slowly, she clenched her fists and scowled. "I'd brush that off like I always do… Just ignore it. But not now! Not when I finally have a punching bag to take it out on!" Her speed, even faster than before, once again surprised Ragim, who barely dodged Gienah's punch. Without an impact to provide resistance, Gienah's momentum carried her forward, but she had prepared for that. As she passed Ragim, she lifted her back foot while twisting away and delivered a powerful heel kick to Ragim's side. She pulled her leg back and squatted down, then jumped and gave Ragim an uppercut to the chin, causing the tall dragon to stumble backwards. Cure Gienah did not let up there; screaming, she chased Ragim down and began pummeling her midsection. Gienah hauled back and punched Ragim hard, sending her flying backwards. Breathing heavily, she watched the dragon struggle to her feet.
"Today has been miserable. First that stupid plane, then the swan shows up again, now this!"
Another shock ran through Cure Gienah's body. "What do you mean, "that stupid plane?" she said, softly.
"Nothing you have to worry about. A plane just got a little too close for comfort, so I blew it out of the sky," Ragim said.
"Nothing I have to worry about?" Gienah shouted. "That was my dad's plane! You almost killed us!" Anger contorted Gienah's face into something genuinely frightening, so much so that Ragim recoiled from the sight of it. "And for what?"
A sudden wind picked up and before she knew it, Cure Gienah set one foot in front of the other and was moving her hands in a spiraling pattern.
"Precure Gienah Zephyr Tornado!"
As she cried out, Cure Gienah thrust her hands forward, palms outward, one above the other, and a fierce vortex of air exploded out from them. Gienah's skirt and frilly blouse snapped in the wind while the vortex scattered leaves, twigs and dirt underneath as it rushed forward. Ragim took the full brunt of the impact, knocking her off her feet and propelling her at incredible speed through the forest, spinning and ricocheting off of trees as she went.
Once the wind settled, Cure Gienah remained in that pose for a moment, tears of rage hanging in the corners of her eyes, before straightening up. There was considerable damage to the landscape along her Zephyr Tornado's path, and, at the far end of it, a crumpled, white figure tried to rise. Gienah saw her and began to advance, but Ragim scampered into the shadows of an evergreen and vanished.
"Great job, I'm impressed," Gliese said from off to her side. One orange wing still dragged along the loam.
"Are you ok?" Gienah asked, tucking her skirt under her and squatting down.
Gliese looked at her wing and half shrugged. "Not really, but I'll make do. What's more important is that I apologize for dragging you into this."
"What do you mean?" Cure Gienah asked.
"It was really the only way to save you, but you're a Pretty Cure now." Gienah hmmed and considered this. "That was one of the Chaos Dragons, a group trying to upset the balance of Earth and harvest Chaos Energy to revive the Dragon and attack the Cygnus Kingdom. I know that doesn't make sense right now, but it will in time. Right now you have something more urgent to attend to, do you not?"
Gienah opened her mouth but paused and looked around before speaking. "So... Heh, ok, this might sound silly, but... So all this was real?" Gliese nodded, and Gienah stood solemnly. "Then I have to go back to my dad." The frills on her blouse's sleeves waved gently in the breeze. "How do I get back to normal?"
"Just concentrate really hard on being yourself."
She did, and reverted back to her civilian form. Miyu had something in her hand; the brooch Gliese had given her. Raising it up to examine it, she discovered that it was of a swan with its wings outstretched, not in flight, but more like Gliese had done when she first defended her. The bird was worked in silver, encircled by silver with gems at the five points where it touched the swan: Head, wings and feet. Miyu turned it over in her hand and placed it in her jacket pocket. "Sooo, are you coming with me?"
"Yes. But can you give me a hand?" Miyu knelt in the ground and as she gingerly lifted the injured bird, noticed that her hand was now whole. As she rose, she looked towards where Ragim had disappeared, only to find the area restored to its pre fight state. Miyu turned away slowly and together they followed the trail markings back to the crash site.
"Dad?" Miyu said, leaving over the wreckage. He did not respond verbally, but stirred a bit in his chair.
"I saw your flare earlier. Maybe someone else saw it, too," Gliese said, noting the sadness in Miyu's face when she looked at her father. "Perhaps you should try another one."
"I'll try calling for help again, too." Miyu sniffed and swallowed. "We'll- I'll be back again, dad. We'll get help, I know it."
The return trip to the clearing was made in silence. When they arrived, Miyu set Gliese down and removed her phone from her pocket. Turning on the screen, she thumbed the unlock code, checked for signal (there was one tiny bar) and dialed 119. The strength of the dial tone as it sounded in her ear brought her relief, but that was only the first part.
"119, what is your emergency?" came the dispatcher's voice, clearly.
"Oh thank God! Our plane crashed in the woods and-"
"Did you try to call earlier?" the dispatcher asked.
"Yes!" They had heard!
"Please stay on the line as long as you can." A thought occurred to Miyu and she looked at her phone.
She could hear the dispatcher faintly from the earpiece saying, "Miss? Miss?"
"Just a minute, just a minute, just a minute!" Miyu activated the GPS and it searched while she opened the mapping application. The dispatcher was still talking, but his words were too soft to hear, so she put it on speakerphone and read out the coordinates the GPS returned to the dispatcher.
"I've made a note of them, but I was asking if there were any injuries."
"Yes! My dad! He's really hurt. And still in the plane. I didn't think it would be a good idea to try to remove him."
"Go-, o-. Now, -"
The call was beginning to break up, so before it dropped, Miyu shouted, "I'm going to fire a flare!" After that, nothing. She put the phone to sleep, replaced it in her pocket and took out a flare.
"Wait," said Gliese. "Let's wait a few minutes. They may need time to get somewhere where they can see it."
That made sense to Miyu, so she sat down next to the bird with the flare in one hand and flare gun in the other. Fiddling with them, she said, "I didn't thank you before, did I?" Gliese remained silent. "Thank you. If you hadn't showed up, that dragon would have, well, who knows, right?"
"You saved me from Ragim as well, so there's no debt."
Miyu smiled and looked away, maybe blushing a little. When she turned back, she said, "While we're waiting, why don't you tell me more about this Pretty Cure thing?"
The two of them sat there in the clearing and Gliese explained about the Cygnus Kingdom, the Chaos Dragons, what she had been doing on Earth prior to their meeting, and what she learned before leaving the Cygnus Kingdom.
"You should fire that flare now," Gliese said.
Miyu rose and loaded the second flare into the chamber. "It's going to be loud," she warned. This time, Miyu pointed the flare gun skyward with her right hand while covering one ear with her left and pressing the other up against her outstretched arm. She fired, and the flare cut a red path across the darkening sky. Once it disappeared forever, Miyu stared into the blank sky for a few moments before turning to leave. "That's that," she said, and picked Gliese up.
Back at the crash site, Miyu approached the plane and heard movement. "Dad?" she exclaimed, hurrying to his side. Naoki actually turned to look at her with open eyes. "Dad!" The urge to hug him was strong, but Miyu restrained herself, not knowing the extent of his injuries.
"Miyu." Tears began to stream from his eyes. "I heard you. I knew you were alive."
"Hang on, dad, there's help coming!" Naoki just smiled slightly and slowly blinked the tears away. "Oh dad…" Miyu said, beginning to choke up, and soon she was completely overcome, though the emotion was still a fluctuating mix of worry and joy.
Naoki made a noise Miyu could not make out, and she quieted down to hear better. "Shhh. Listen."
Miyu listened, but simple sounds in the silence of the woods were overpowering, so she held her breath and listened again.
Faintly, in the distance, the blades of a helicopter's prop beat rhythmically against the air.
Miyu raised both hands to her mouth and tears poured out of her eyes. "Oh my God…" A moment later, she felt something and looked down to see Gliese smacking her leg. When the swan caught her eye, Gliese pointed sternly in the direction of the clearing. "I'm going to go signal them!" Miyu shouted, as she ran from the plane.
The path was almost second nature now, and Miyu crashed through branches and dry underbrush at a full sprint, taking in great lungfuls of air as she did. She had to chuckle when a thought from what seemed like a million years ago surfaced in her mind, (An idol has to stay fit! Performing takes a lot of stamina!), and she was thankful for all the hard work she had put in.
Bursting into the clearing, Miyu looked around in the sky, but the helicopter was not visible. She tried holding her breath again, but the life-sustaining pounding of her heart beat deafeningly in her ears. With the flare and flare gun in her hands, she walked more slowly to the middle of the clearing to look and listen again. There was still nothing to see, and her hearing was still obfuscated, but her heartbeat and breathing were returning to normal.
She walked around the clearing, wiping sweat from her brown with her jacket sleeve and concentrating on breathing deeply for a minute or so before trying again. Something was definitely audible now, but the direction of its origin was unclear.
(No, I'll wait. Maybe it will come closer. I can't waste this flare.) Miyu looked at the empty sky. (Please please please…) An unspecified amount of time passed while Miyu stood there, before she finally shook her head to clear her daze, causing her long hair to shake back and forth.
The first thing she noticed was that the helicopter was much more noticeable and definitely coming from that direction! Miyu quickly but carefully loaded the flare into the chamber, took the gun in both hands and pointed it skyward, then shouted, "I'm over here!" and fired the final flare. As the red light burned its way up, Miyu slowly lowered the gun. The flare fizzled out and for a moment, Miyu worried that it had not been seen, but then the noise from the helicopter blades grew. And there it was. Clearing the treetops was a medium-sized helicopter, shining a spotlight into the clearing. Crying with joy, Miyu waved her hands back and forth as it hovered off to one side. Miyu thought she should get out of the way, so she jogged over to the path back to the plane and stood behind the first trees. She watched as it gingerly touched down in the clearing, rotor blades kicking up leaves and dirt and flinging it everywhere. Miyu had to cover her eyes and turn around, but not before seeing two people get out, one carrying a large bag and, the other a back board.
"Miss, my name is Otohata. Are you hurt?" said the first man. Still blocking her eyes from the debris tossed about by the helicopter, Miyu turned to face him. He wore the uniform of an EMT company and a helmet with goggles. The second man was similarly dressed.
"I'm Miyu Oshima. I'm ok, but my dad is hurt. He's this way," she said, and lead them down the path to the plane.
"Don't worry, miss, we'll help your father." The EMTs began their work, speaking calmly to Miyu's father while reaching into the shredded wreckage of the small plane. Miyu could not hear much of what they said, since she was staying out of their way, so she sat down against a tree trunk and picked up Gliese, who had walked over to her.
The first EMT sent the second back to the helicopter, and he soon returned with another large and heavy looking bag, from within the produced a large saw of some kind. Together, the proceeded to cut what was left of the fuselage away so they could have clear access to Naoki.
Time passed while they worked and later, three more men showed up on foot. Minutes continued to tick into hours and the sun progressed across the sky, but finally the medics managed to extract Naoki from the wreckage and onto the back board. Miyu had been nodding off from exhaustion and, to be honest, boredom, wrapped in the emergency blanket she had earlier placed around her father, but the commotion snapped her back to consciousness. When she saw what was happening, Miyu threw the emergency blanket aside but held onto Gliese, and ran to her father's side.
"Dad," she said, taking his hand in hers.
"Lift on three, Asou; one, two, three!" The medics carrying the backboard, the remaining medics, and Miyu, who was holding her father's hand with her own, while carrying a safety cone orange swan who was trying to remain as still as possible with an injured wing, formed a procession on the return trip to the helicopter, where they were loaded into the back.
The doors were closed and the first two medics climbed in the side, then Miyu's second helicopter ride began, on the way to Mizuwa general hospital. She held her father's hand the whole time.
Eyecatcher A: Gliese is standing at a chalkboard, giving a lesson, but Pai is nodding off. She smacks his desk with a ruler, startling him awake.