The plane started tilting down. Kyoko was still shocked and fell down forcing her door open.

"Got ya!" Makoto shouted as he grabbed her forearm. He was holding himself to their bathroom's open door's doorknob.

Kirigiri grabbed his forearm as well because his wounded hand couldn't hold her for more than a few seconds. They looked down and saw a big hole between the right sides of the main room and the cockpit.

When the ringing in their ears almost completely disappeared they started hearing the thrusters of the plane launching.

The aircraft began to slowly tilt back to its normal position and just when it did so the passengers experienced a very tough touchdown as their jet started to rub on the sand.

Because of the impact made by the hard landing, the two Ultimates got thrown onto the ceiling and then back on the floor.

...

...

"Ow, my head.." Naegi slowly got up on his knees and looked for his friend. He saw her unconscious lying not too far away. "Kiri!"

"Can you hear me?!" Makoto sat her up against the plane's wall and noticed small bleeding on the back of her head.

"Oh n-no no no no damnit!" He tore off a piece of his suit and tied it around her wound. "Kiri wake up!" Naegi shook his former classmate by her shoulders. "We need to leave!" After he didn't get any response the Ultimate Hope opened the plane's door and took her out by himself. Afterward Makoto placed her on the sand and ran to check on his pilot. A small part of the right side of the cockpit was destroyed but Ryo was there lying on his seat. His ears were bleeding. "Come on we need to get you out of here buddy." Naegi undid his seatbelts and then took him next to Kyoko with quite a struggle.

"Mm.." Kirigiri rubbed her head.

"He's not breathing!" He put his hands on Ryo's chest and began resuscitation.

Kyoko ran to them and got down. "Makoto, it's no use.." She said after revealing his belly with a piece of metal stabbed deep into the right side of it. "He's dead."

Naegi looked into her dead serious eyes, he simply couldn't believe in what his friend just said.

"He saved us, launched the thrusters, and provided us a smooth landing with a hole in our jet and his abdominal. He truly was an incredibly skilled airman." Kyoko admitted.

"We didn't even ask him if he had a family.." Makoto felt on his hands and started sobbing.

"He will be remembered..." She looked down in respect and mourning.

After Naegi gathered enough strength to stop his tears, his former classmate tried to contact Byakauka.

"There's no connection. That's very unusual since our communication depends on satellites. Because information is crucial in this war, it's likely that they shot down the spacecrafts." Kirigiri speculated.

"W-what do you mean they shot them down, we're in the middle of the desert!" He yelled.

"It's just my speculation. I suspect some other scenarios as well and this one is the most pessimistic option." Kyoko explained.

"..I'm sorry I didn't mean to shout at you. I just need a moment to collect myself that's all." Makoto walked back into the plane. After a few minutes in his room, he got out and saw his friend waiting for him on the flipped-over couch.

"We need to talk our situation over." She stated.

"Yeah. So, what are the other scenarios?" Makoto questioned.

"The second option is that our earpieces just got physically damaged, which is not very probable since they're trying to connect. The third and the last possibility is that there are some sort of jammers that disturb the connection locally somewhere around in our area." Kirigiri told.

"No matter which one we assume, we'll need to go out in the open and search for a village or a city, if there even are any..." He decided.

"You're right, we have no choice. Let's not waste time." Kyoko went to her room and started packing her most important things in her suitcase, her friend did the same.

After they made sure that they didn't leave anything important, they left the plane.

"How much water do we have?" She asked.

"There should be about eight liters in my suitcase and something like five in yours. That averages in about, seventy kilometers of our range. There must be another source of water in that distance." Naegi stated.

"Makoto, I hate to remind it to you but we have to bury him..." Kyoko told.

"I know.." He picked up their fallen pilot. "We don't have a shovel, besides there's sand everywhere.

"Look, I think that there should be some quicksand over there." Kirigiri noticed and pointed forward.

They walked for about two hundred meters until they saw an area of wet sand in front of them.

"Rest in peace Ryo, we will never forget you, you're our hero..." Makoto slowly placed their pilot's body on the ground and covered his face with his favorite bomber hat.

The two Ultimates started at their airman slowly sinking into the sand. For Naegi it felt like it lasted forever.

"I'm sorry I just can't- I will never get used to losing people, the pain is just getting worse every time." He turned around with tears dropping on his shirt.

"Look, I took his ID." Kyoko showed him Ryo's document. "When we come back we'll make sure that his story will be well known. I'm sure that landing pretty smoothly with a critical wound and a hole in his machine will make him a very respected and remembered flyer.

"That's the least we can do for him." Makoto wiped his cheeks. Afterward, he brought a big stone and placed it in front of Ryo's burial place. "Do we have something sharp?"

"Yes, wait here." She replied and went back to the plane. After a moment she came back with a kitchen knife. "That should do." Kirigiri passed the item over to her friend.

"I'll need his ID as well." Naegi requested and received the document. Then he engraved his first and last name, date of birth and death, and finally a special note. "A pilot who saved our lives."

"We will find his killer and bring him to justice." Makoto stood up.

"He's most likely a despair zombie, those people can't be judged." Kyoko pointed out.

"Oh, I forgot..." He walked away from the grave with his friend.

"It's getting really hot here." Naegi complained.

"Don't take off your shirt, you'll get sunburned in less than a few minutes." Kirigiri advised and tied her suit on her head. "We'll need only one layer of cloth and a "

"If you say so." He did the same as his friend. "Alright, I think that we're ready to go. The question is in which direction"

"Considering that we were flying towards Algeria from the United States I think that we should head east or southeast." Kyoko concluded.

"Let's walk in the direction of between these two then." Makoto decided and looked at his watch which had a built-in compass.

Like this, The two Ultimates began their journey through the hottest desert on Earth - The Sahara.

"How hot is it here? I feel like I'm in a sauna." He complained.

"Considering the amount of sweat on our faces, it's pretty damn hot." Kirigiri concluded.

"Okay that's my bad, no complaints from now on. Let's just look straight forward and keep going." Naegi stated with confidence. "There's something else that bothers me though, remember what Ryo told us when we first met him? That our plane is invisible to every currently available radar. How did they shoot us down then? Or did they use a missile? What if we had a bomb stuck to our aircraft before we even took off?" He speculated.

"That's not possible. The impact I felt was clearly created by something hitting us from the outside." Kyoko rejected his theory. "Even though your way of thinking may be right, there's a chance that they mounted a tracker on our plane when we were absent. That would explain why they shot us down at low altitude in the middle of the desert." She assumed.

"Yeah now that you say it, it seems like the most probable option. It would mean that they didn't have to use the local radars or the local anti-aircraft missile system because they had us like sitting ducks. They could shoot from wherever they wanted. But what bothers me is the fact that the missile was so weak. It did very little damage for a military rocket. Why didn't they pick a deadlier one?" Makoto questioned.

"For some reason, they could want us to survive. We are vulnerable now, they can capture us here but they weren't able to do that back in the United States where their forces were defeated in the area of our visit. We can just speculate because we don't know much about weapons or that plane. Maybe its armor was just so tough that it absorbed most of the explosion, we don't know that. For now, I would suggest that we save our saliva and stay quiet to prevent faster dehydration." Kirigiri proposed.

"You're right, we should value water more than anything in this situation." Naegi agreed with his friend and from that moment they didn't speak a word until the sun has hidden behind the dunes.

"It's getting really cold. We should rest here." He sat down with his former classmate in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, a land of never-ending sand.

"Shouldn't we travel when it's night and sleep when it's daytime? This way we wouldn't sweat so much or waste water." Makoto suggested.

"Not a good idea, we wouldn't be able to fall asleep in such sweltering heat" Kyoko rejected.

"You got a point." Naegi admitted.

They took off their suits of their heads and wore them since the tempreture started to decrease drastically.

"What are we going to sleep on?" He asked.

"Our spare clothes seem to be the only choice." Kirigiri opened her suitcase and started placing her suits and pants in a shape of a mattress. Her friend tried to imitate her perfect layout with his garments.

"Doesn't look that bad, does it?" Makoto lied down on his imitated mattress. "Not the comfiest surface to sleep on in the world but hey, it still feels great to lie down after a very tiring day. By the way, how much water do we have left?"

"Less than 3 liters." She informed and lied down with a dark purple blanket.

"..Sounds promising, we should be pretty close by now." Naegi assumed trying to sound confident.

"Don't you have a blanket? What will you cover yourself with?" Kyoko questioned.

"I didn't bring much besides my clothes and a small towel." He replied.

"I'll have to share my covering with you then. Move your mattress closer." Kirigiri suggested.

"Oh no t-there's no need really-"

"Don't try to make this awkward, we are trying to survive Makoto." She insisted.

"O-okay sorry.." Naegi moved his stuff closer so they could share the blanket.

"Goodnight." Kyoko pulled her hands from under the blanket and put them on it as he joined.

"Kiri you can take them off, your hands need to breathe." He proposed.

"Thanks. At least it's dark so you won't have to look at them." Kirigiri freed her hands and put her gloves away.

"I don't mind doing so, you can take them off whenever you want when I'm around." Makoto smiled.

"That's kind of you." She said seeming not to believe his words.

"I mean it Kiri.. goodnight."

They both stared at the clean of any clouds and full of stars sky with their hands on the blanket.

Both of them seemed to feel uncomfortable with their friend lying right next to them. Even though after a couple of minutes, they rolled on opposite sides and slowly doze off...

"Rise and shine detective girl! Just free yourself from your lustful adorator's embrace first!" Junko cheered.

"Shut up, I'll take the pills later I want to sleep..." Kyoko thought.

"But I'm not joking!" Enoshima chuckled.

"What do you mean you're-" She realized that Naegi is cuddled to her from behind with his hand on her belly.

"Hey just breathe alright? You can't orgasm just from this!" Junko shouted.

Kirigiri slowly put his friend's hand away and crawled to her suitcase with a blush.

"How are you gonna explain that huh? He can't control himself around you!" She laughed.

"He was getting cold and I was a source of heat, that's a natural behavior." Kyoko stated.

"Uhuh keep making some dumb explanations! What are you gonna say when he-"

"No listen, I'm tired, no, I'm SICK of your horny jokes, they're not funny, they're disgusting alright? YOU disgust me, a LOT." Kirigiri swallowed her pill and started messing with her watch to set a daily reminder.

"Bestie I just wanted to bring a little humor in your tough situation, I didn't mean to offend you by any means.. But, if you hate me so much, I guess that I'll just go away... And you don't have to stop me really, I'm going.. now.. but if you by any chance want to stop me then now's your chance to do so. This is, the last moment, when you can stop me... Okay then..." Enoshima started crying and slowly began to vanish.

Kyoko sighed, sat on her mattress, and noticed the sun slowly going up from behind the dunes. "Makoto we have to go." She gently shook his shoulder.

"Y-yeah coming..." he muttered and stretched his arms.

The two Ultimates both ate a protein bar and continued their journey. Their water resource ran out faster than they expected.

"We're almost there Kiri, just keep going.." He lied and fell on his knees.

"I can't, I just..." She felt down as well being dizzy from dehydration.

Like that, the two it seemed powerful yet meaningless compared to the might of the desert people turned unconscious. All that was left were them, the two tiny black dots and their suitcases lying on billions of tons of sand, and the sound of a slight wind, carrying orange grains with it.