For a moment he couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. He could hear the wind blowing over the snow, but couldn't feel it against his face.
Ginji shook his head sharply. Stupid. This was Ban-chan. Midou Ban would not get taken down by something so trivial as a few thousand kilos of snow. He had felt Ban's hand grab his as the avalanche hit them; they couldn't have been thrown that far apart. Ban was just under the snow, as he had been--he couldn't answer with it filling his mouth, like drowning in a semisolid lake. If he hadn't dug free by now it was because he was counting on Ginji to get him out.
Where, though. He turned again, slower now, scanning the clumps of snow, still seeing nothing. But he hadn't needed his eyes to find the plane. That had been Ban's idea--"It's an airplane, a big hunk of metal, in the middle of the mountains. There's no powerlines out there to interfere. All you need to do is put out a little current and feel if anything nearby reacts..."
Ban knew his powers as well as he did himself--better, even. Ban knew more about electricity, magnetism, not just how it actually worked, but why. But some things Ginji knew, not the science or the reasons, but just what was, what he felt.
All animals have a certain field, the sum of the tiny charges that exist inside each cell. It wasn't something he was usually aware of, except on the subliminal level that all things are, that instinctive knowledge of the presence of life. But he was used to the city, used to the constant flow of synthetic energy around him, the pulse of generators powering hundreds of thousands of small and large appliances and tools and toys. Here there was nothing, just snow and stone, and the electricity within him thrummed, tingling faintly against another living circuit--not too distant, and familiar as the power flow between his own cells.
He opened his eyes, forged through the snow--to his left, a little further down the slope, and then he was crouching to dig. The icy clumps fell apart in his hands, easier to just shove them aside, brushing with full sweeps of his arms until he had uncovered a patch of dark violet--Ban's jacket, and Ginji knelt in the drifts, took firm hold of the parka and yanked his partner from the snow.
Ban coughed, pawed feebly at his face. Ginji tore his glove off with his teeth, swiped the caked snow away with his bare hand. "Ban-chan?"
"...shit." Ban coughed again, doubling over as he struggled to sit, and Ginji put an arm around his shoulder to prop him up. Then Ban's hand closed around his wrist. "You okay?" he wheezed.
"I'm fine--are you okay, Ban-chan?"
"Yeah, yeah. Just need...to catch my breath." He shivered once, so violently it was almost a shudder, brushed more snow off his coat in a quick, convulsive motion. "Damn, that...sucked." For a moment he just huddled on the ground, holding his head in his hands, his breath a white fog around his mouth. Then his eyes opened wide and he lurched to his feet, staring up the slope. "Shit--the snowmobiles--"
Ginji, also standing, followed his line of sight to the barren snowscape above them and shook his head. "I think they're gone, Ban-chan."
"Great. Just--" He kicked at a clump of snow, only to stagger, pain flashing quick and clear across his face.
"Ban-chan?" Ginji caught him, and Ban leaned against him for all of half a second before straightening up.
"Shit," he said again through clenched teeth, glaring down at his boot. "I think..."
Ginji helped him to sit in the snow, squatted beside him and touched his leg tentatively. "It's not broken...?"
Ban shook his head. "Doesn't hurt that much. Just twisted it, I guess. It'll be fine." He tilted his head back up at the blue sky, eyes squinting shut, then exhaled hard, took hold of Ginji's shoulder to push himself standing again. "Damn, it's getting late--we better move it, if we're going to make it back before it's too dark."
"Ban-chan..."
Ban looked at him sharply. "You still got the thing, right?"
Ginji would have blushed, had the wind not beaten all heat from his cheeks already. "I, uh..." He patted his parka, sighed in relief. "It's still there."
"Great. Then let's get it back." Reaching into his pocket, Ban withdrew the positioning tracker Yokomori had lent them, studied its readout, then gestured upslope. "That way." And he began trudging up the mountainside, Ginji following him.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, while Ginji studied his partner's back. It was slow going over the rough snow, and Ban wasn't obviously limping, but his steps on his injured right foot were just slightly shorter. After a few hundred paces, Ginji circled up the incline to take the lead, taking a little time to stamp down a clearer path in the snow for Ban. His partner glared, but said nothing.
Lifting his head into the wind, Ginji called, "We were lucky, weren't we, Ban-chan?"
For a couple paces there was no answer, and then Ban growled, "How--"
"Because if we'd gotten there any later, that avalanche would've buried the plane, right? So we wouldn't have been able to get it at all, and Yokomori-san would have lost his songs." He looked up at the sky. "Now we'll get to hear them--you think he'll play them for us?"
"Maybe. If you ask."
"And we'll get the bonus, too, right, Ban-chan? Like he promised. We found it before Shido did, even."
"...Yeah."
At his tone Ginji glanced back in time to see his partner's mouth twist, before he sank his head down into his parka's collar. He grinned. It was one of his favorites of Ban's many expressions, that unsuccessfully hidden smile when you reminded him of something that pleased him. People teased Ginji sometimes that it took so little to make him happy--Ban would roll his eyes at his excitement over an ice cream cone, even as he would try to steal it for himself--but really Ban liked just as many silly things. He just wasn't so loud about them.
He knew that Ban wanted to hear Yokomori's songs as well--when Ginji had asked about his music, Ban had said his talent was undeniable. And he was Madoka's friend, and Madoka had wanted them to get back his songs. Ban liked good music, as he liked good art, not quite the same way Ginji did, but just as much, or more.
He had asked Ban before, to teach him the right way to look and listen, so that he could see and hear what Ban did. And Ban had told him a little bit about painters and composers, composition and form and tradition and interpretation, but when he looked confused Ban had said, intense and quiet, that it didn't matter anyway, how he looked or listened, as long as he did. Ginji still asked about art, though, and Ban answered, and he was learning little by little. Everything he didn't know didn't bother him that much, because Ban always knew it anyway. But it was good to have some of that himself.
He wished he could hear Yokomori's music now, instead of the wind. The snow crunching under their boots sounded like crushing cartons, like crossing a junkyard of styrofoam, only there were no fences, no divisions, just continuous rising and falling white. He hardly noticed when they reached the ridge, except the snow was shallower and not smashed and broken by the avalanche. There were a few stunted trees growing in the meager shelter afforded by the cliff face, and their icy boughs were almost shockingly dark against the white, the whisper of their rustling needles loud as thunder.
Ban didn't say anything, but Ginji heard his footsteps cease, stopped himself and looked back. His partner was leaning against one of the trees, digging the tracker out of his coat. It dropped from his gloved fingers, and Ginji bent, picked it up and gave it back to him.
"Thanks," Ban said, shortly. He was breathing deeply, his head hunched into his collar so the air he took in was warmed by his body heat. Squinting down at the device, he cupped one hand over the little screen to block the glare of the long, slanting rays of the sun.
"How far away are we from the lodge?" Ginji asked. The journey hadn't taken long at all on the snowmobiles, and he hadn't really been watching the scenery. Not that he was especially good at recognizing where he was anyway.
"Only about seven kilometers," Ban said. "Though that's as the crow flies."
"But it's not too far...how far have we come already?"
"About a kilometer, maybe one and a half."
"That didn't take too long. And we were going slow over that broken-up snow," Ginji said. "It's packed down here. Which way?"
Ban pointed as he stowed the tracker away in his jacket. "Over that next ridge. There's a pass, we can climb it when the snowmobiles couldn't--should be faster." He rubbed his gloved hands together, worked them deeper into his sleeves. "Dammit, could be a little warmer."
"It's getting later in the afternoon," Ginji remarked. "If we jog we'll be warmer."
"Yeah." Ban nodded, pushed himself off the tree. "Let's go, Ginji!"
It was difficult to run in the snow, and the boots weighed his feet down, but Ginji felt better for the activity, and the impact jogged a little feeling back into his toes. The snow shone less blindingly now, as a few clouds gathered over the sun, but whenever one muted that light it seemed abruptly chillier.
He stopped when he reached the steeper incline, waited for Ban, lagging behind, to catch up. He was favoring his leg more noticeably now, but when Ginji tried to ask him if it hurt, Ban cut him off with a sharp wave. "Fine," he panted. "It's just twisted. Come on." They climbed up the slope, Ginji falling back to let Ban lead.
The gap between the stone was only wide enough to allow one of them to pass at a time, and Ginji watched Ban clamber through it with half-realized apprehension. The rocky ground was invisible under the snow and slick with ice, and Ban slipped a couple times as he pushed through the passage, clumsy with his injured leg. Even if he denied it bothering him. Ginji, following close behind, tried to take his arm, was shrugged off irritably.
The warmth of the previous exertion wore off as they made their slow way through the cleft, so Ginji found himself shivering slightly, even in the thick parka. But that motion generated its own heat, and he added to it, opening those internal channels a little, to let an energizing current flow through his limbs. He smiled slightly, stretched and enjoyed the pleasant electric tingle, entirely different from the pins and needles when he wiggled his freezing fingers and toes.
The other side of the pass was even steeper, and they fumbled for grips on the rocks under the ice to help them descend. The mountainside blocked the worst of the wind, but the sun as well. Snow crumbled under Ban's boot and he tripped, cursing and windmilling his arms as he lost his balance. Ginji scrambled down to grab his parka's sleeve, pulled him safe against the rock.
"Shit." One glove scrabbling for purchase on the snowy stone, Ban put his other hand to his head, rubbed his temples.
"We're almost to where it levels out again," Ginji assured him. Then watched as Ban pinched the bridge of his nose, his brow drawn in tight tense lines. "Ban-chan, does your head hurt?"
"Too damn cold," Ban muttered.
"But that shouldn't give you a headache..."
"Let's just get off this damn rock, okay?" Grasping the boulder with his hands spread, Ban slid himself down. At the bottom of the incline he stopped, his hand starting to raise to his head, dropping instead to take out the tracker again. He tilted it, frowned, then pushed it toward Ginji.
Ginji took it unwillingly. "Ban-chan, I don't get how it works--"
"Look at the screen, it's not hard."
"But, Ban-chan--"
"It's too dark in the shade and my glasses are back under the snow."
"But you don't need your glasses to read..." Ignoring the device, Ginji scrutinized his partner instead. The furrows in his forehead were sharply etched, his skin pale under the dark hair blowing across his face. "Ban-chan, look at me."
"Just read the damn screen, Ginji."
"You should be wearing your hood. It's warmer." He reached out to tug it up, but Ban batted his hand away. His eyes were narrowed to dark blue slits, and not just against the wind, Ginji didn't think. "Ban-chan, did you hit your head in the avalanche?"
"The damn avalanche hit every part of me." Ban yanked up his hood over his hair, pulled the string to gather it around his head. "The lodge is already plotted. What does the tracker give for distance? First row of numbers."
Ginji studied the screen, all intersecting lines and tiny digits. The string along the top was easiest to make out. "5.6 kilometers? Maybe? It doesn't make sense to me."
Ban straightened up, grinding the heel of his hand against his eye. "The star in the middle's us. Should be right above the big latitude line, and we should be going southeast." He waved back at the low sun. "Which we are." He opened his eyes, began walking again, his gait uneven but determined. "So let's get going."
But by the time they were starting up the next slope, his pace had dropped to a shuffle. Ginji saw his hand go up to hold his head again, and he stumbled, his leg dragging. When Ginji drew even with him, reached to steady him, Ban didn't push him away, instead draped his arm over Ginji's shoulders and let him serve as a makeshift crutch.
As they mounted the next crest, Ginji couldn't help his awed gasp. The setting sun glittering between the mountains spread rose and golden light over the snow, softening the jagged peaks, the valleys cast in deep blue shadows, pure as the sea. The clouds gathered above caught that same light, until mountains and sky seemed all one continuous landscape. "Ban-chan, it's beautiful..."
Ban raised his head with undeniable effort. "Yeah," he said quietly. His teeth were chattering, and he hadn't pulled away, so with Ban leaning against him Ginji could feel his shivering under the parka.
"Maybe tomorrow we can go skiing," Ginji remarked, pitching his voice so the cheerful tone rang against the mountains' stillness, as they started sidling their way down the slope. He picked the way carefully, with an arm around his partner to guide Ban, walking with his head down, nested in his collar for warmth. "You said you'd teach me, right, Ban-chan?"
Ban grunted an unintelligible but probably rude reply, and Ginji smiled. "But it looked fun, the skiers we saw yesterday. And Yokomori-san said there's skis at the lodge. I hope he won't mind too much about the snowmobiles...it wasn't our fault they got buried. But we did get his recorder back, that should make him happy."
He glanced up at the blue-gray sky, the gilt-edged clouds. "It's cloudier than it was before..." There was something in the air, though not the subtle charge that heralded a thunderstorm. The wind picked up again, shrieking over the slopes to stir a sandy spray of ice crystals. He ducked his head against its tearing teeth, looked up again when the worst had passed. With his attention on scanning the sky, he tripped over the irregular snow, almost knocked Ban over. "Sorry, Ban-chan..."
"What're you doing, idiot?" Ban's mutter was more exhausted than annoyed.
"Sorry," Ginji said again. "I just--I saw some crows earlier, but it's getting late for them."
They plodded another few steps before Ban asked, "Crows?" He tugged them to a halt, dragged up his head to glare. "Ginji, that damn monkey trainer..."
On the trip here, Ginji had essayed to ask Shido to work with them, but somehow that request had ended up becoming something of a bet--a wager between retrieval agents over who could find the recorder first. It seemed to Ginji that they all had a better chance of succeeding if they worked together, but after the truck ride to the lodge with only he and Madoka wedged between Ban and Shido on the narrow bench, it was surprising that Shido was still talking to them at all. If by talking one meant glaring in their direction muttering, "Damn snake bastard," at occasional intervals when he thought Madoka couldn't hear. Ginji suspected Madoka's hearing was better than that, especially in light of her blindness, but she didn't comment, though he did notice her smiling a little behind her hand.
He would have felt better if he could see a few black birds overhead now. At least so Shido could tell Madoka not to worry when they were late for dinner. And Ban was swaying where he stood, bowing in the wind, his eyes closed again, and the shadows falling across his face were the same blue as the snow in the twilight. His hood had blown off again, and white flakes matted down his dark spikes.
"Ban-chan?" Ginji took off his gloves, brushed the snow off Ban's hair and pulled his hood close, tied the drawstring so it couldn't slip off again.
Ban's swat at his interference was halfhearted at best. "I'm fine, Ginji. Don't even feel that cold anymore."
Except when Ginji put his hands to his face he didn't feel any different from the snow. "Ban-chan, I really don't think that's a good thing..."
Ban opened his eyes, their blue navy-dark as they met Ginji's. "Maybe not," he allowed. "But we gotta keep moving."
to be continued...