It'd been twenty-four hours. Iwaizumi had not moved from his spot, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side. He'd been outside when the monster's beam had cut through the air, slicing buildings in half. And Oikawa—he'd opted to stay inside and move all of their things to the car. He'd always been materialistic. Iwaizumi had never cursed him for it until now.
Look where that got you, you absolute idiot, he wanted to rage. Wanted to scream, shout, and bellow. "Goddammit!" he roared, startling Sato and the rest of the workers. Oikawa was fading in and out, looking like he was going to fall asleep anytime soon. And never wake up, a part of Iwaizumi whispered to him. "Where are they?!"
"I'm sorry," Sato apologised, solemn. He took off his hard hat, holding it to his chest. There was a profound sadness in his eyes—the eyes of a man who knew the words to the chorus of defeat by heart. "But it seems that they're having a difficult time navigating through the wreckage. The slightest wrong move... Could collapse even more rubble on him."
"Cut off his legs, then!" Iwaizumi didn't care. Oikawa would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and likely living a miserable existence, but at least he would be fucking alive.
"That would mean certain death," Sato said gravely. "We don't have to proper equipment to perform an amputation safely. There are several arteries in the leg. He would bleed out in minutes."
"Then what can we do?! We can't just stand here!"
"You know..." Oikawa's sleepy voice shut them up. "It's rude to talk about me as if I'm not here."
Iwaizumi grit his teeth. "Now's not the time to—"
"Iwa-chan."
Under the pall of the breaking dawn, Iwaizumi gave Oikawa a long look. His face was ashen. Cheeks sunken and lips bleeding from the dryness. "What?" His heart jumped to his throat, and he gripped Oikawa's hands. They're so cold.
Oikawa didn't respond.
"Oi... Oi! Oikawa!" Iwaizumi began to shake him. "Oikawa, wake the fuck up!"
He couldn't leave him now. He couldn't. Not when he still had so much life left to live. So much to offer the world. He was supposed to stand on the world stage someday.
A sob choked him, his entire body convulsing. "God, just hang on. Just hang on, okay?! We're going to get you out! Oikawa? Oikawa!"
Sato took a step back.
And Oikawa's eyelids fluttered. "Sorry... Did I scare you?"
Iwaizumi's lips pressed inward as tears spilled over his eyes. "You bastard...! Don't do that again. Just—stay awake, okay? I'm here. I'll be here, so just stay awake. Don't close your eyes."
He laughed—it was dangerously feeble. "Alright, Iwa-chan. Ahh..." Oikawa let out a pained grunt, wriggling his shoulders. "Hey, Iwa-chan. Why did this happen?"
"What do you mean?"
"What did we do to deserve this?"
This. This being the descent of a god upon them, wreaking havoc and sowing seeds of fear and horror among them. Shin Godzilla had been unstoppable, fueled only by instinct. His parents were Christian. To them, this must have been judgement day. If there was a god up there, then he was condemning humanity.
It didn't matter what they, as individuals, had done. The beast had spared no one, and every sacred blessing sent up to heaven had meant nothing.
It'd been a day of fear.
A day of persecution.
To his horror, Oikawa began to cry. "There's no reason, is there? For people like us. We're just... collateral damage."
Iwaizumi's heart twisted. "Don't... Don't say that... We were just unlucky."
Oikawa stretched his neck, staring at the dark sky, unseeing. "When we die, who will know?"
For that, Iwaizumi had no answer.