Below, down in the sewers, the other three paused as they heard a deep rumble from above and the walls started vibrating.
"What is that?" Julie whispered, then yelped as another explosion, this one a hundred times louder, rocked them back and forth.
"We need to move forward!" Trowa shouted, beginning to run, "the walls are starting to cave in!"
The two women glanced up fearfully and gasped as they saw and felt little pebbles of cement pour down on them.
"Where do we go?" Julie cried, coughing as dust from the grinding walls blew onto them.
"Anywhere but here!" Mayumi replied frantically as she splashed though the slime, now not even noticing it.
They had gone about fifteen feet when the ceiling caved in.
Julie screamed as a huge chunk of cement fell in front of her and she jerked back, panting.
Looking behind her, she saw the same thing was happening.
"Where do we go?" she cried, dodging the large pieces that were falling all around them.
"I don't know!" Trowa called back, covering his head. He looked about frantically for some place to duck and cover, but there was none.
Mayumi suddenly saw an enormous chunk of concrete that was angled upwards, leaning against another piece. It created a sort of shelter area, and she raced for it.
"Get in here!" she called and scrambled under the jutting end. Quickly the other two joined her, and they smushed themselves in, Trowa on the end. He turned his back to the outside and huddled in, praying the cement wouldn't collapse. If it did, they would be crushed immediately.
For what seemed like hours the debris pounded them, making it sound like they were in an air raid.
Mayumi and Julie crouched against Trowa, who held them to his chest, protecting them from the small but sharp pebbles that were propelled into the opening.
Hiiro didn't want to open his eyes, afraid that he would see the golden gate of heaven or the fiery barbwire of hell.
Then he heard a little cough from somewhere, and he thought it odd that someone would be sick after death.
He squinted his eyes open and soon they became teary from the dust still hanging in the air.
He tried to move, but found something on him. And that something had a long braid that was currently on his chest.
"Duo?" Hiiro muttered weakly, pushing himself upright. He was surprised he was alive. Once the floor caved in, he was sure they would be buried under piles of rubble.
"Hiiro? That you?" Duo murmured, putting his head up. "Are we alive?"
"We aren't in heaven if you're here," Hiiro muttered and pushed Duo off him, causing a small avalanche of rock to clatter down to the floor. Hiiro saw he was a little above the floor, lying on a pile of cement. Above him was nothing; the whole corridor was gone, and small fires licked the air everywhere.
"How are we still alive?" Duo asked, standing up. He had cuts all over the exposed pasts of his body, and his shirt and pants were torn in some spots. He had a nasty cut just above his right eye, and wiped the blood away before it leaked into his eye.
Hiiro stood up as well. He had fared a little better, though his one arm had a gash in it.
"I think we were shielded somewhat by that," he pointed up, and Duo saw a piece of the floor still intact, hanging just over their heads.
"Wow, talk about luck."
He kicked a stone, sending it down to the ground. "Hey, wait a minute, where's Shiris and Damian?" he said suddenly. Hiiro glanced around, expecting to see them, but didn't.
Duo got a pained look on his face. "Come on, we have to dig. They might be under us." He began pulling rocks out and chucking them away, Hiiro soon joining him.
Then, from another part of the wreckage, a hand shot up out of the rock and rubble began to shift as it was pushed up.
"Over there!" Duo cried, and the two rushed to help.
After a minute, they managed to pull Damian out of the small hole and then Shiris from under him.
Both were looking very bruised, and Shiris had a gash across her shoulder. Even Damian looked beat up, and his coat was torn in various places. They brushed the dust off of themselves and then surveyed their territory.
"Where are we? Is there a lower floor?" Shiris asked as she saw the slime-covered floor beneath her.
"No, this is the sewer," Damian replied irritably, very, very angry at how things had changed. He had never expected some idiot of a guard would even consider tossing a grenade in the room they—he— was standing in. Once everything was over, he was going to personally kill that man if he hadn't been killed in the explosion.
He felt a tap on his arm and turned quickly.
"Hey, where do we go now?"
Shiris was looking up at him, her eyes tired and skin covered in dirt.
"Man, we better get that freaking laptop," Duo muttered from the corner. He had his arms folded and was kicking stones down the hill.
Hiiro was thinking about what to do. Obviously, Damian was not as reliable as previously thought.
He brushed the dust out of his hair and then sneezed.
"We head down the sewers. Your friends should be down here somewhere, if they are on schedule," Damian said as he carefully made his way down the rock hill.
"What?" Shiris exclaimed fiercely, "our friends are down here? You mean they could be under all this rubble?"
Damian nodded and continued walking.
Shiris ran up to him. "Were you planning on helping them or just walking away?" she demanded.
"Help them if you want, but it would take a long time to search the entire length of the sewer. I suggest we keep moving unless we see a definite sign of them," was the cold reply.
Shiris made a frustrated noise and started down, the two boys following.
Trowa carefully stood up and helped the two girls out of their hideaway.
"At least we made it," Julie murmured as she dusted herself off.
Mayumi sneezed a few times as she cleaned her clothes and hair, and Trowa didn't even bother. He was too busy looking at where they were.
He saw the whole ceiling was gone, even where the sewer curved behind them, and they would have a little bit of trouble making their way forward.
"Great, we have to climb," Julie muttered as she saw the huge piles of rock before them.
"What do you think that explosion was?" Mayumi asked as they started forward.
"You don't think it was the other group? That they were killed?"
Her partners didn't answer, so she became quiet. They all knew that was a possibility.
"What do we do now that the gray block is no longer our exit? What if it was blown up?" Julie asked.
Trowa shrugged. "I have no idea."
"Lets just keep walking until we hit the intact ceiling and keep searching for it. There's a good chance we haven't hit it yet," Mayumi suggested, and started up the rock wall.