Sorry for the slow-down, you guys. While I do have a few chapters to catch up on, my poor proof reader needs some R&R now and again.
Thanks to all you commentators, as always, especially Catherine, who's been loyalty nudging me along and the wonderful and terrible influence of Ikasury. Don't worry, PC is still on the table. *wink*
She felt that she was nearing the end of her short-lived patience yet again. After some more posturing and grand-standing by the clone, boasting about the prowess of the guards (which it oddly never specified) and speeches on how it would wipe out any aggressors approaching them; Naoto and the clone had watched how the teens fought and fought, progressing through the defenses the clone had underlined several times as being undefeatable. She felt like it took forever, now and again the teens vanished from the CC-TV, then returned what seemed like moments or hours later.
She had lost all sense of time, her repeated loss of consciousness (it could not be simply falling asleep, surely) muddling up her normally well-honed sense of time. Her watch had stopped working, the date and time settings seemed broken and showed all number eights. Perhaps it had gotten damaged. She would surely need to open it once she got home and inspect the parts for damage or corrosion.
During one of the clearer moments she had, Naoto wondered what that combat looked like for the teens. Seen from the outside through the cameras, she just saw the teens rushing into a darkened mist and then re-appearing shortly after. Sometimes injured, so she was certain it was combat she saw. But she could never actually make out what happened. Each of them carried more or less preposterous weapons. Narukami seemed to hold a zweihander, while Tatsumi seemed to carry a table of all things one moment, then appeared to carry a kind of shield the next. Satonaka seemed unarmed, as did Amagi. And that strange friend of theirs, Ted, if she remembered correctly, seemed to have insisted on that ridiculous bear-suit, having equipped what looked like genuine pantera.
And while she had no direct proficiency or familiarity of the base's blueprint, something told her that they were coming closer. Most likely the more and more feverish snaps of sobbing and angry insults from the clone, if nothing else.
She abhorred to admit the fact, but she started to feel anxious in the presence of the creature.
Suddenly the clone flew into an indescribable rage. Between its grandstanding and fits of crying, it ran from console to console, pushing buttons, flipping levers. Naoto lifted tired eyes to the screens, all showing the teens returning once more, this time all of them and not just a small group. Furious, the clone spun around and bolted in a dead run towards her. It stepped on the oversized coat, stumbled, and fell on its knees before the exhausted detective.
Tears streaming down its face, it looked up at her, its yellow eyes seemingly glowing. "They are here!"
Naoto barely registered her alleviation through the fatigue she felt. "Indeed. The game is up."
"They have come to take you away from me!"
"No. They have come to return me where I belong."
"You belong here! You belong with me!" It fell forward, drumming impotent fists on the metal grates of the floor. "You must stay. I n-need you!"
Naoto felt a vestige of pity for that broken creature. Whoever had created it must have been a cold-hearted maker indeed. So much raw emotion does not come out of a void. It comes from suppressed feelings - years of repression and isolation; possibly years of abuse conducted directly at it.
The creature shuffled forward on its hands and knees. "Please... please..!" Naoto shook her head and pulled herself to her feet.
The groan of agonized metal sounded behind them, as a door rumbled open, two sections sliding apart. She knew it had been a door, but nothing seemed to open it. So there was a release for it, but on the other side only.
She heard the team run inside. She was not sure how she had expected her rescue to happen, especially seeing she had always still expected to escape on her own, but she heard the familiar and somehow comforting shout of "Naoto!" in the voice of Kanji Tatsumi. It had been her assessment that he would be the one who would seek her out. He was, after all, the last one she spoke to and he was the one she had known the longest, in a way. His appearance with the rest of the group could only mean that he had figured out the hints she had presented him with.
Still. It grated on her she even needed rescuing. She turned to face them, fighting to keep herself in finely controlled composure, pushing her aches, pains and nausea aside. "It's about time you arrived," she said flatly. "Dealing with this child has been quite a pain."
The clone looked up, too, started, and grabbed for her arm. The voice hitched high, wailing. "No! No, no, don't go!" It clutched at her, holding on as if she was the only life line in a stormy sea. "Why, why do people always leave me? …I'm gonna be alone forever."
She once more felt the pang of empathy for the sorrow the creature must endure and shuddered at its touch. She allowed the hands clutching her arm however. She had grown accustomed to the creature touching her in these last few... hours? Possibly. She shook her head, not looking beside her. "This is useless. I need to go back now."
The crying grew more frantic beside her. "You know what it's like! Why? Why are you leaving me here? Why am I always left alone?"
Naoto swallowed a wave of nausea and mumbled a reply. "Try to understand. I need to lead my life. I cannot be held back here. I cannot take care of you or be held back by you."
She felt a tear-soaked face trying to snuggle against her hand. "It's s-so lonely, I don't wanna be alone!"
In response, Naoto could only roll her eyes. She had tried reason. She had tried demands, questions, comforting. She was out of further attempts at this point. She was also aching, feeling quite ill and needed to leave here. The sooner, the better.
She heard the teens talk to one another quietly, but was too far to actually make out what they were saying. Why had they rushed in here, but now were passive? She could still be in danger, but they simply stood afar and watched. She felt reminded of Tatsumi's injury during the school trip and the passiveness his peers had shown that night.
Naoto turned to glimpse at the clone, disconnecting its grasping hands with a small shake of her arm. "I see you still wear the same face as me," She attempted to make her voice louder now, but her tone was not quite level. She had to explain this somehow. Make sure the teens understood that she had nothing to do with this being. The feeling of illness seemed to rise again. "But the similarities end there. The difference between me and you is-"
"Differences? Why delude yourself? I am you." The creature switched voices seamlessly, into the same deep, exaggerated, commanding voice it always used when it was mocking her. The tears vanished as if by magic, as always they did when this shift happened. It proudly rose beside her, one hand painfully clutching her arm once more; one turned to the team, then casting the sleeve toward itself. "These childish gestures are no mere affectation - they're the truth! A truth you have been hiding! And by hiding, the only one you hurt is the one you are trying to protect."
Naoto felt a stream of ice-cold, molten iron flow into her spine. She grabbed at the pointing arm and tried to jerk it back. "You will not do this. You will not involve them in... in that," she hissed.
"What?" the clone sneered. "The fools all say it, don't they? 'You're only a child,' 'Keep out of our business, kid' and so forth - doesn't that sound familiar?"
Her voice raised in pitch. "That, that has nothing to do-"
"But it's the key to everything, isn't it? No matter how many cases you spend hours cogitating over, no matter how many crimes you solve, you're a child in their eyes! It's only your brain they're interested in, the grey matter locked up in that skull." The being pulled its arm free and swung it towards the team, possibly pointing. "Just like them. They are not here because they like you, Shirogane. They just think you'll be a fun plaything. For a little while, at least. Until your novelty has worn off."
Naoto's eyes followed the gesture with a blank stare. What if that was true? They did not know her, not really. The only ones who may have had any kind of positive feeling for her seemed to be Tatsumi and Kujikawa, and with these two she was not entirely sure, either. Kujikawa less than Tatsumi, but that possibly because she kept trying to flirt with Naoto. It make her uneasy. Kanji Tatsumi never flirted.
He now lurched forward, his brows drawn down, fists shaking at his sides. "Naoto, that ain't true, don'-"
Narukami placed a hand on the punk's shoulder and held him back, saying something softly.
In reply to whatever words were spoken, Tatsumi straightened his back, his muscles showing taut under his tank top. He trembled, and his poise appeared to be at the point of rushing forward.
The clone sneered, turning its attention back to the detective. "An impeccable performance, Naoto-kun. You've demonstrated how very, very clever you are, and how utterly wrong these children were. I'm sure they're all quite intimidated." It draped a long sleeve around Naoto's shoulder. "What happens now?"
She wanted to shoot a determined, strong answer back... but no words came to her. A plaything. Was she a plaything even to those of her own age? What was she? Where would she go from here? She pinched her eyes shut as a sharp pain invaded her temples yet again; fingers of it trying to gouge at her eyes.
"Oh, but you already know!" the clone trilled. "As long as people need your talents, you're an ace detective - but when you're done, out the door you go." The arm around her shoulder hugged her close, near and tenderly, but the hand that gripped her was rough and the fingers boring into her shoulders painfully. A fleeting thought of a falcon holding its prey entered her mind.
Her head sank further, her field of vision now being bordered by her cap and the metal grate under her feet. She could not bear looking at either the clone or the teens.
The creature shoved her aside with a snarl, sending her stumbling. "And yet the outcome surprises you. Every. Single. Time! Society is two-faced and playing pretend does nothing to deal with that. The real adults will always win - and you, you're just a lonely child!" With a gleeful laugh it added "Not even the other kids come to play with you, they just gawk," pointing at the others with a cheerful and quite childish giggle.
Naoto swallowed a wave of nausea, stumbling; her hand reaching behind herself, trying to find something to hold on to. She grasped the rim of the metal table. She could hear the teens talking softly. Still impassive.
And then she heard it again. The being started to cry, and turning her head slightly, she saw its whole body jerking with sobs, lifting the huge sleeves against its eyes. "I-I wanna be a grown-up!" The clone nearly choked, voice higher than ever. "I wanna be a big boy right now, then, then they'll see - I'll show them who I am!"
She lifted a shaking hand to her cap, holding the brim down, not wanting to see it any longer; wanting to shut out the whole situation. It was mocking her. Emulating her somehow, but always missing the point. These were not her thoughts at all! Why would it paint such a grotesque picture of her - in front of others her own age?
It wrung its hands in oversized sleeves. "Please... please! I...I want a reason for me to stay!" The sobbing turned into a desperate wail. "You do, too. We belong together… Please. You must not let go."
Naoto's hand clutched at the table, her eyes pinched shut against another wave of pain throughout her body. Her words started as a whisper, gaining volume as she spoke. "Stop it... go away... That's enough!"
It cringed and the next words were barely audible between hiccups and sobs, saturated with anguish and torment. Its voice cracked around each word as it howled, "I wuh-want... a reh-reason… to stay uh-alive!"
Naotos' head snapped up, her eyes rimmed by tears of distress. How could it know? How could it possibly have known these thoughts buried within?
She had never shared these thoughts, never even dared express the lonely feeling of any escape at all in written manner. She knew she had these feelings occasionally. Knew she often felt like being a burden to Grampa, or how everyone else could simply move on easier, or how the longing for her parents could simply be snuffed out with just one action, just one lift of the barrel, just one bullet-
NO! She furiously ran her hands over her face, not allowing the tears to fall, roughly wiping them away. "I-I can find my own reason for living!"
The voice altered with a laugh. "Your own reason? Impossible, Naoto-kun. You are but a child. How can you change that essential truth?"
Trembling hands clapped over her ears. "Stop saying that…" Naoto looked up, her hands dropping to her sides, balling into fists. She felt herself shift, felt herself readying herself to swing at the creature, hitting it, shutting it up. "S-Stop it...!"
"Simply put, you cannot. You idolize the sort of 'strong' and 'cool' men who populate detective fiction, but for all your efforts to emulate them, all your attempts to dissemble, you know full well you're nothing of the sort." She saw the creature approach her, felt it placing both hands firmly on her shoulders. "Unless you can change the person that you are. And you are a child."
Naoto's hands unfurled from fists and flew back to cover her ears. "Don't! Don't you dare call-"
She caught herself. The pain, the nausea, the distractions thrown up by the creature. She needed to escape its pull. End the discussion. She shot a glance at the team of teenagers, then pulled herself up, roughly planting a hand on her hip. She tilted her head up and coolly glanced at the clone. Just for a few minutes. She only needed to hold on a few minutes, then she could take control, leave this place, and continue her hunt for the killer. Her case - that was the goal. Her case and finding new leads.
"Endless affectations," the clone clucked, scowling. "But there's no avoiding first principles. Admit that you're a child, and admit that there's nothing you can do about it!"
Naoto's mind was racing. Truth. All of what the creature had said could be considered a certain, limited truth-
It spun towards the operating table, lab-coat twirling about it. "Now then! Our analysis is complete. Let us begin the body alteration procedure!"
The detective simply stared. She thought she had grown accustomed to the taunts and insults. But bearing them in front of an audience…
The clone hopped on the table, perched on the corner and smirked at her. "So strong! So silent! Presumably you have no objections... 'Naoto' Shirogane."
Her resolve shattered. It would not dare. It could not! It would not bring that up, not with any witnesses. Her voice fought to remain smooth. "S-Stop it!"
The creature just chuckled and rocked back on the table, heels kicking against the side. "'Naoto'... such a cool, manly name! But a name doesn't change the truth. It doesn't let you cross the barrier between the sexes!" Naoto winced, it felt like someone had taken a hammer and flung it through her absolute self; sending it to shatter all around her.
It leaned forward now, chin resting on its hand, eyes wide and curious. The child-like mannerisms clashed with the cold words that it spoke. "Tell me, Naoto-kun...how could you become an ideal man when you were never male to begin with?"
She could hear the teens mumble, but could not hear them. Not because they were too quiet, but because everything in her head ran amok. Her heart pumping furiously, she heard her pulse like the rushing of an ocean whipped by a hurricane. She shook with each thundering heartbeat. With a shaking hand, Naoto pulled off her hat and ran a hand through her disheveled hair. She tried to force her breath to become calm; tried to make her heart stop racing. Evenly. Slowly. The heart thundering in her chest made it quite impossible. "I won't throw a tantrum," she hissed. "That accomplishes nothing!"
The clone's deep, manic laugh echoed through the chamber. "Ah, how often I've heard those words from the adults! 'Throwing a tantrum won't solve anything, Naoto-kun,' and other such bilge!" It jumped down from the table and sauntered over to her again. Its voice was smooth, warm, like honey. "They made you cry, didn't they?"
It slid behind her, sensual hands running over her arms, up to her shoulders and hugged her closer lovingly. The same silky voice mumbled into her ears, warm breath making her shiver. "They made you cry. They made you feel alone and isolated. And yet here you are, mimicking those same men. What exactly are you trying to justify?"
She twisted from the embrace, one hand balled to a first, half pulled back. "What...?"
"It's all right. You needn't suffer anymore." The beings voice was smooth, almost gentle. It reached out and trailed a finger under her chin. "That's why you're undergoing this bodily alteration procedure. That's why you need to be fixed - and then everything will be so much better."
"I-I don't want..." She edged away, glancing from the creature to the team and back again - before shaking her head. The pain behind her eyes and temples was nearly consuming her by now. She felt weak, sick. She lifted a shaking hand to her face, willing the stinging in her eyes to cease this instant.
"You throw a tantrum, but it fails to change the situation a single bit!" The being tutted sadly, letting its arms drop. "I can quite understand the feeling." Eyes glowing brighter than ever, it paused, tipped its head, smirking balefully. "After all, I am you."
How can that be? How could they... did someone attempt to replace her? But would this was impossible. It was an inferior copy of her! ...were the other teens replaced in the same fashion? Wh-No! It was trying to confuse her, that's all.
Naoto gathered herself, flinching at the throbbing pain in her head. Cold anger grasped her and she sneered at the creature. Fists back, shivering with fury she shot back. "That is not true!"
Chie shouted out behind her. "No, Naoto-kun, don't say it!"
She wanted to turn around, ask for them to leave, ask for them to help, but the glare of bright yellow eyes consumed her entire field of vision. She heard a second voice speak up behind her. "It's okay." Tatsumi's voice sounded odd. A mix of determination and sadness. "Let the kid spill the whole thing. If not, Naoto's gonna keep hurting. We'll just do our job and kick the Shadow's ass, yeah?"
Hands still curled into fists, Naoto glanced over her shoulder at him. Shadow? Their gazes met, and for all of a split-second, she felt a rush of energy. It felt as if he was willing her to push through. As if his being there was the needed encouragement she had been waiting for since she arrived here. And something else... through her pain and weakness, something else crept up inside of her. Thankfulness? Naoto was unsure of what it was. She was just so tired and exhausted. Emotional, as a result of … whatever all of this was.
She watched him lift a solid-looking shield, the muscles in his arms and shoulders playing as he did.
Behind her came another hysterical laugh. Naoto turned, flinching and shivering with pains and nausea, watching the creature; the shadow. "As if you know anything about me! You'll kick my ass, huh? Go ahead and try, you lizard-brained imbecile!"
Naoto frowned. Kanji Tatsumi may be simple, but that was going too far. "This only delivers the final proof! You are not me!"
She whirled around to face the being - and stopped as she noticed the floor around the ...shadow turning black. Dark fog rose up from through the grates and swirled thickly around the shadow's legs, spiraling up until even the yellow glow of its eyes disappeared.
She felt being flung across the room. Later, she could not recall hitting the ground.
The exhaustion of the previous days tried to shut her down, but she clawed at consciousness, wanting to refuse giving in... She was carried... Placed down... She thought she could hear Tatsumi bellow. But then she slid away into darkness, conscious thought retreating.
###
Cohesiveness returned. "Mmph?" Her body was positively permeated in dull pains and aches. Her head hurt. Her eyes fought her as she tried to open them. "Where..."
"Naoto-kun! Are you okay?" Amagi-san. Hands tried to latch on, but she needed to avoid the contact. It could reveal her frame and... Other, more hidden items of clothing - for a better lack of terminology. She roughly squirmed away and pulled herself to her feet, legs struggling to support her, squinting at the oddly bright green light, body shivering with aches and weakness.
"Wh- I... I remember you all arriving here, and ..." Naoto trailed off, glancing at each of them in turn, then around the room - and when her eyes finally settled on the shadow, she flinched. Memory came flooding back. The speeches. The grandstanding. They had gotten a show they were unlikely to forget and even less unlikely to have missed entirely. "You... you all saw everything." She forced her eyes shut and sighed deeply.
She had been trying so hard to deny the possibility. Had spun the most ludicrous of explanations she could think of. (An Android, Shirogane, really?) But again she had to count up the facts. The way it knew things about her, things she was certain not even Grampa had seen about her in years. Or the way it echoed some of her deeply hidden emotions. A 'Shadow' the teens had called it. And while they had rushed to be here for her, they had watched quietly, even holding one another back. They knew this world, it seemed, and knew it better than she had. Not involving them into her planning showed itself as a miscalculation now.
Maybe this creature was indeed a… an individual she had formed. A manifest of her fears and hurts. A part of her that both wished to be protected and urgently desired to protect her in turn. Just where had she been taken?
Naoto walked towards the cl- ... the shadow, looked it up and down, and let out a soft sigh. "I don't know what you are," she told it quietly, "but I know where you come from."
Hanamura coughed. "Uh… You can tell me to butt out, Naoto-kun... but... well, why'd you pretend to be a guy?" he asked, yelping painfully a moment later. "Come on, it's the obvious question!"
Naoto's jaw tightened. "It's... complicated." And that was only the briefest possible way to describe the situation.
"We have time," someone behind her said evenly. "Plenty, now."
Naoto closed her eyes again, and felt a sleeve-covered hand try to take hers. She allowed the contact and opened her hand to welcome it, closing fingers around the shivering hand in hers. She looked into the mirror of her face, dominated by bright yellow eyes, filled with tears, as they gazed longingly at her. "Very well. I shall endeavor to explain." She gave the hand a squeeze, then turned back to the... the other teens. For a fleeting moment, the word 'friends' tried to form, but was viciously smothered down.
"I lost both my parents in an accident when I was very young. My grandfather took me in." Her gaze unfocussed, staring through her fellow students unseeing as she chewed her lip a moment. "I... had little talent for making friends, so I spent my time reading detective novels in his study."
"I-I remember you looking at them," mumbled Tatsumi. She re-focused her sight and looked at him. He in turn eyed the floor grates. "At the bookstore."
As Naoto nodded, the shadow opposite her mimicked the motion. It drew a deep breath and said, voice quietly wavering with emotion. "When I grow up, I'm gonna be an awesome, hard-boiled detective!"
"More or less," Naoto muttered. She looked back at the .. Well. At herself, for a lack of better explanation. She turned back to the others. "My parents were also detectives, making me fifth in the Shirogane line. An inherited occupation can feel stifling, yet I yearned for the day I could follow in their footsteps and become a detective myself." She shook her head. "But I was always alone. I suspect my grandfather felt it was his duty to compensate for that by helping me realize my dream."
"Which is why you've already solved so many cases." the tall gray-haired boy said.
"Exactly, Narukami-san. I secretly aided my grandfather with his clients - and before I knew it, people started calling me Junior Detective. At first, I was delighted... but not everyone welcomed my collaboration." She grimaced. "My status as a 'child' has been sufficient to offend many potential colleagues."
She felt her legs weaken, so she found a console and leaned her hip against it as casually as she could manage. "Were my youth the only issue this situation would naturally resolve itself with time. Unfortunately, changing from a child to an adult only solves one side of the problem. Changing from a woman to a man... that half is impossible to achieve merely with the passage of time."
"Do you not like being a girl?" Yukiko asked. "Is that why you always dress like a boy?"
Naoto nodded, eyes averted. "My sex doesn't fit my ideal image of a detective. Besides, the police department is a male-orientated society. Give them one 'concrete' reason to look down on me, and nobody would require my assistance any longer."
"You don't know that," Tatsumi insisted brusquely. He glowered with the suddenness of his quicksilver mood.
Amagi nodded in quiet agreement before speaking up. "Kanji-kun's right. And you already know that what you really want isn't to become an adult or become a boy, don't you?"
Naoto crossed her arms and lowered her head to think. She took stock of her general being and feelings.
Was she truly gender dysphoric? No. When it came down to it, it was more like an actor pretending to play a part than a human who felt emotional distress at being trapped in another body than their perceived gender. She did not desire to be male for any reason other than work. She also had to realize she lacked any female role models she had fully embraced in her ideal career. She barely remembered her parents and Grampa was as close to the stereotype as one could come.
It was an act. A show she had put on. And in the end, it was not the actual problem at all. "You're absolutely right," Naoto said to Amagi-san. She turned her head to her shadow and cocked her head, watching as it again mirrored her movement. Slowly, hesitantly, it walked up to her, covered hands reaching yet again. The yearning in the action took hold of her chest. Years of pushing aside her emotions; years of teaching herself to not feel, to not be a child, to not be emotional and feminine... was this what it would look like inside of her, were she able to see the results?
Naoto took its hands in hers. "I am sorry," she began. "I kept ignoring you, pretending you didn't exist. But you are me, and I am you. What I should yearn for-" Naoto hesitated, one hand rubbing her neck. "No. What I must strive for, isn't to become a man. I must accept myself for who I really am."
Before she'd even finished, a blue glow around the shadow had begun to flare brighter and brighter, eventually swallowing it completely. The last thing to vanish in the glow seemed to be a tear-stained smile.
With the sound of breaking glass, a small winged figure appeared in its place - then vanished, the light settling on Naoto instead and diffusing over her skin.
As innocent as that moment seemed, it came with a physical component. It felt as if someone tried to pull the skin from her scalp, followed by a prickling feeling down her spine. Finally, she felt a taut pulling feeling behind her eyes, as if something physical was trying to push its way inside. Her eyes narrowed, and she grabbed her head - then collapsed to her hands and knees. Though her panting and the pain of it all, she noticed how Tatsumi jolted forward, stopping after a few hasty steps towards her. None of the others had moved.
"Wha-what was that?" she hissed.
"You'll be fine, Naoto-kun." Rise Kujikawa knelt beside her. A gentle hand rubbed her shoulders; another tried to help Naoto settling back on her heels. It was a sign of her exhaustion that Naoto was unable to shake off either help or sign of affection. "Same thing happened to all of us."
Naoto blinked at her, her eyes watery with pain. "You're... certainly a devious bunch. No wonder the perpetrator has eluded the police." Hands leaning on her knees, she let out a shaky, humorless chuckle. "C-Can't believe you kept ...something like this hidden. For so long." She noticed her speech slurring slightly and fought a shudder.
"Yukiko did try to tell you," Hanamura jokingly pointed out.
Naoto heard a confused "I did?"
"Yeah, back at Tatsumi Port Island, the nightclub, you- ow! Stop doing that!"
The next to speak up was Satonaka. "Yosuke, keep your mouth shut! Um... I'll explain later, okay?"
"Well, regardless..." Narukami's voice broke in, "at least now we know this case isn't over."
Naoto fought slowly to her feet. Her head pulsed painfully with each motion, and the nausea made her feel… smaller. Weaker then she had before. She saw Amagi offer her a hand, and she reached out for it to steady herself - before yanking her hand back sharply. They cannot see how weak I really feel. I'm sure my hand is shaking.
"Yu's right." Hanamura winked at her, flashing a quick grin. "And you proved it, Naoto."
"Yeah, s'right," Tatsumi interjected with an odd glare at the second-year. Naoto noted he offered a hand to Kujikawa, helping her up, then turned to the detective. "C'mon, kid. Let's get you out of here."
Relief flooded Naoto. She was safe now. The teens, limited abilities and all, had pulled through for her. She gave Tatsumi the specter of a smile. "It is as I said when we last spoke. Last night... or the night before? I'm sorry, my watch stopped working while here."
She stumbled, her legs nearly giving way as she tried to take her first step. Kujikawa was at her side at once, gently catching her. "Kanji-kun, you klutz! Offer a hand?"
Naoto shook her head. "Thank you... but, that will not be necessary." She pulled free from Kujikawa and steadied herself against a console once more.
Amagi had a puzzled look for a while, before she spoke up. "Naoto-kun, how long do you think you've been here?"
"I am not sure, I kept passing out, possibly due to these noxious fumes all around." She rubbed a hand over her face tiredly. "Seeing how comparatively well I seem to feel overall, I estimated it might have been about 36 hours."
Kujikawa shot her a glance, then smiled tightly. "Well, I am glad you are feeling alright! Now, let's try that walking thing again, okay?"
Setting her jaw tightly, forcing her body to move based on pure willpower, Naoto started to head out of her fortress.