Notes: I'll give fair warning here that the violence warning is up on this fic for a reason.
"After I was sworn in as a physician, there was one night where Umi took me aside to talk. It annoyed me at first, because when she wasn't busy killing things, Umi was always obsessed with some sort of philosophical crap. Personally, I couldn't care less about whether we're all trapped in a state of existential limbo or not—what matters is what we do here and now. If she really wanted to discuss that kind of stuff, she could always bother Kotori or Eli.
Anyways… where was I? Right, taking me aside for a chat.
At first, I didn't understand why she was giving me a gun. 'I don't need this,' I told her.
'Yes you do,' she argued back. 'You are going to be a prominent figure in medicine going forth. You realize that, do you not? Whether or not you succeeded in becoming a doctor, it will not be easy for people to forget who your father was. You don't know what will happen, so you need to be able to defend yourself.'
I couldn't argue with that logic, so I took it. Carelessly, I carried it around with me because I knew she'd bug the hell out of me if I didn't. Even though she insisted on giving me lessons on how to handle it, privately, I doubted that I'd ever find myself in a situation where I'd need it.
I don't think I've ever been gladder to be wrong in my entire life." —Nishikino Maki
The moment Umi walked in through the front door of Kotori's apartment the next morning, she knew her tulle nightmares were coming true.
Fashion magazines were spread over almost every available table surface and lengths of various fabrics littered the living room like hammocks. "Ko…tori?" she called out, stowing away her keys in her pocket, feeling more than a little unnerved by the sight before her and unsure if she wanted to know where her fiancée was.
"Umi-chan!" came the muffled, enthusiastic call as Kotori's head popped up from behind the couch.
Slowly, Umi let herself into the apartment and closed the door behind her. "What… is all this?" She had mentally prepared herself for a moderate amount of wedding-related paraphernalia, but the collection of magazines and fabric her fiancée had managed to fit into her apartment scared her slightly more than she would have liked to admit.
The brunette put on a thoughtful face—for the life of her, Umi could not tell whether it was genuine or not. "Let's see," she said, putting a finger to her chin and looking upwards in a contemplative gesture. "I'm almost done making the dress, but we have the venue to decide on, a guest list to agree on, and food to order."
Umi pressed her lips together in a bleak smile. "What do you want to do first?" she asked, resigned already to the fact that she was never going to win over Kotori or her mother in her attempts to convince them to let the two of them elope.
"Well, we'd pay less for the venue if we book it early," Kotori answered her brightly, straightening and holding out a hand to lead her over to the dining room table. Umi took it, following her with a nod that she tried not to make out as blank, but had the nasty feeling that her lack of enthusiasm was communicated nonetheless.
The sheer number of magazines that greeted her on the tabletop made her almost want to reconsider her decision as she moved aside a stack of them to sit down on a chair. She picked one up to give it a cursory flip-through. "Which ones did we narrow them down to last time?"
Kotori looked thoughtful as she retrieved a pad of paper from the kitchen countertop, pulling out a pen from a pocket in her dress. "These three, I think." She circled three names in red ink and ripped the piece of paper out from the pad to hand to her. Picking it up, Umi noticed the prices of each venue in her handwriting beside each of the names. "Have you thought about it since last time?" her fiancée asked her.
"To be honest, no," she admitted. "I'm sorry, Kotori—there's been a lot going on."
The brunette gently placed the fingers of one hand over hers and gave them a squeeze. "I know. It's okay, Umi-chan."
"I'm open to whatever you think is the best choice," Umi offered weakly. It was an answer she would have preferred not to give, especially knowing how much a—their—wedding would mean to Kotori, but it felt like the only thing she could say that wouldn't belie how she actually felt about the process of getting married.
If Kotori was hurt by it though, no sign of it showed on her face. "Well, my mother really likes this one," she said, pointing to the last name on the list of three. "Would you have an objection to that?"
Umi took a closer look at the name. She did not need to look it up to remind herself which one it was, as the venue was a garden that she passed often on the way out of the city. It came as a slight surprise to her that Kotori wanted to choose the shrine that had been built in Tokyo to commemorate the victims of October 2022, but she sensed that there was a different purpose behind it—one she knew all too well.
"No," she replied, finding and holding Kotori's warm golden gaze, realizing and understanding the hint of sadness present in her otherwise gentle expression. "I think it's fitting." In her own way, Umi knew that Kotori too, wanted to remember the people who should have been there with them.
The brunette blinked once, and the brief moment of sorrow was gone. "Okay." She pulled a sheaf of paper out from underneath a stack of magazines. "But Umi-chan, please tell me you at least thought about the guest list," she said, her tone more cheerful as she quickly scanned it once.
"I did. There's two people that I'm planning to invite."
Kotori gave her a pleading look. "Umi-chan…" she said imploringly.
"I'm serious," she replied.
Shaking her head a little, Kotori put the small pile of paper back down on the tabletop and scribbled something on it. "Just Eli-chan and Maki-chan? You're not even going to give them the option of bringing someone else? We can squeeze them into the seating plan, you know."
"What?" Umi almost laughed out loud, despite the solemnity of the room just minutes earlier. "Trust me, Kotori, they don't have anyone else to bring either."
The brunette frowned slightly. "Umi-chan, you don't know that for sure." She wrote something else down in a different colour. "Well… I'm still going to leave the option open for them. You'll tell them that they're free to bring someone else, won't you?" Kotori turned another beseeching look upwards at her.
How am I supposed to say no to that?
"I'll tell them," she sighed. Just… don't be surprised if they show up by themselves. She kept the final thought to herself, though, as she watched her fiancée compare her guest list—which included coworkers, old contacts in the fashion industry, and former classmates—with the seating plan.
"I think we'll be able to fit everyone in the garden if we sit like this," Kotori said happily.
Suddenly, she jumped up almost as soon as she put the seating plan down. "I almost forgot! I'll be right back." Kotori dashed out of the room before Umi could even ask her what she'd forgotten.
The brunette returned a few minutes later, carrying a large, clear garment bag in her arms, the see-through plastic doing little to hide the contents inside. Umi could feel the apprehension build in her abdomen, shrivelling up her insides like a fruit left outside on a hot summer day. Oh no…
Working the dress free of the bag, Kotori held it up from its hanger so that the hem was off the floor.
Obviously still unfinished, the cream-coloured dress glinted faintly, giving off a soft golden glow in the summer morning sun. The skirt was made of a sheer, silky material, and the bodice had been heavily embroidered in a pattern of vines, leaves, and tiny flowers. She couldn't see it, but Umi knew that concealed behind the creation was a train that had to be twice as long as she stood tall.
"What do you think, Umi-chan?"
Umi raised a slightly-shaking finger. "T-That's not—I'm not wearing that… am I?"
Kotori laughed, the sound echoing through the apartment like music notes. "No, silly, this is for me. I would like to know what you think about it, though."
An immediate blush crept up to her face as Umi stood up. "O-Oh." Embarrassment crashed over her like a wave at her hasty, fear-fueled assumption. She was reminded, once more, of how lucky she was to have Kotori as her fiancée; it could have been very easy for someone else who was not as warm-hearted to take what she had said completely the wrong way.
She reached out to touch one lacy, embroidered, cream sleeve; the velvety softness of the fabric underneath her fingertips did not surprise her. "Did you make this?" she asked softly, floored by the amount of detail that had gone into the garment.
Kotori nodded. Her voice was suddenly shy. "Do you think it suits me?"
"It's absolutely amazing," she assured her. Warmth filled the previously apprehensive pit of her stomach when Umi realized she meant every word she was saying. "You'll look beautiful in it."
The brunette smiled, the expression crinkling the corners of her eyes. "I'm glad you like it, Umi-chan. You can't see it when it's completely done until we get married, but I'm glad I could give you a preview."
Umi frowned. "Why can't you show me what it looks like when it's finished?"
Carefully putting the unfinished dress back in its garment bag, Kotori gave her an indulgent look. "Umi-chan, don't you know the tradition of not being able to see the bride in her dress until her wedding day?"
"No," she told her. "I don't think I agree with that tradition."
Kotori giggled. "Traditions are important, Umi-chan. Speaking of dresses, though, we should discuss what you're going to wear."
It was not a topic that had been brought up very much between the two of them in their planning sessions, but she supposed that a discussion regarding it was inevitable. After all, there was no way Kotori was going to let her go through the ceremony in her hunting gear.
Taking her hand again, Kotori brought her back to the dining room table and picked up a magazine from the windowsill, flipping through the pages too rapidly to be carefully looking at the images in it at all. "I know you don't like dresses, Umi-chan," she mused, half-to-herself. "What about a kimono?"
Umi paused, thinking the idea through in her head. She wasn't much for formal wear, but she had to admit the idea of wearing a kimono was a far more appealing one than the multitude of evening gowns that Kotori had made her look through last time. "That… wouldn't be terrible, I suppose."
Judging by the way Kotori smiled, the brunette understood the meaning behind the grudging sentence. "Then I'll make sure to come up with something suitable for you."
Looking down at her magazine again, Kotori pulled her pad of paper towards her with her pen stuck in her mouth, occasionally flipping through it for ideas. Umi sat in silence beside her, content to just watch her fiancée draw. "Have you thought about the dance we're doing yet, Umi-chan?" she asked nonchalantly after a considerable length of time.
Umi looked at her sharply. "D-Dance?" she echoed. She could feel flustered heat making its way up her neck at the mere mention of the word.
"Mmhm," Kotori hummed without looking up. "I promised my mother we'd dance together at the ceremony."
"Wait—In front of everyone?" she asked, unable to contain the note of panic in her voice. "No. Kotori, you know I can't—" Malefic images suddenly crowded in front of her vision and Umi resisted the temptation to put her hands over her face as though they could block out the possibilities that she was envisioning at that moment.
"Yes, you can," Kotori said patiently, still drawing. "There's a specific dance I'd like to do, if you don't mind. I'll send the video to Eli-chan. She can teach you, right?"
No, I do mind, Umi wanted to shout, but what remained of her sense of dignity would not let the words past her lips. "B-But I'm not—" she sputtered. "I'm a horrible dancer," she croaked out. "It's—"
The word "shameless" couldn't make it out of the back of her throat either, because Kotori had finally put down her pen and was giving her a placating look she knew all too well. "Umi-chan," her fiancée began sweetly, "I know you don't like dancing, and I promise that after this, we will never have to do it again. But do you think you could do it for me… just this once?"
Umi squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment, not wanting to look at the pleading expression in the brunette's golden gaze before she let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. She bit her lip, her heart suddenly thumping too hard and too fast for her sternum. "Fine," she ground out at last.
Kotori beamed at her. "Thank you, Umi-chan! Remind me to text Eli-chan the video in a few days so she can get started on learning it so she can teach it to you."
Is it too much for me to hope she forgets? She quashed the wishful thinking under her better judgment, knowing that intentionally sabotaging whatever Kotori wanted Eli to teach her would not end well for her.
She closed her eyes again, surprised herself when a small smile crept up on her lips. There is really only one person I would do this for, isn't there? She could sacrifice her self-respect—and quite possibly the last of the respect her friends had for her—for the person who had reached out a hand to stop her from becoming someone that she knew she did not want to be.
Whatever happens, this is worth it.
Maki dragged her feet down to dialysis, half-drunk coffee in one hand and her ID badge in the other.
After pulling in a few favours, she'd managed switch around her patient list so that Yazawa Coutarou was now last on her rounds list. He was currently scheduled for 1830, a mere half an hour before she was due to leave. Of course, evening rounds never went the way she would've liked them to and it was now 1917, a fact that she was sure the boy's sister would not be happy about—if she had bothered to stick around for the appointment.
Privately, Maki sincerely hoped that she hadn't, because she had made sure the boy was last on her list for a reason, but she didn't put much stock into that: Yazawa Nico liked yelling at medical professionals far too much to pass up the opportunity to do so, and she wasn't disappointed when she finally let herself in through the doors of the dialysis ward—she could hear the woman's voice from where she was standing by the doorway.
One of the nurses gave her a grimace as she passed the nursing station. Normally, Maki didn't condone gossip about patients and would've called the nurse out on it, but unfortunately, this time, she understood the sentiment behind it all too well.
She checked her datapad, noting that the younger Yazawa's appointment had been scheduled from 1630 until 2030. Judging by the noise coming from the bed furthest from the ward doors, she assumed that that was the bed he was occupying, though she made sure to double check the chart notes on her datapad just in case. Once Maki was sure she had the right bed, she drew back the navy curtains designed to offer its occupants some privacy.
Yazawa Coutarou was sitting up in the bed, something that she was sure the nurses had explained more than once was inadvisable during the dialysis session. He was mirroring a strange, awkward pose that his older sister was currently demonstrating, complete with a very odd looking hand gesture. "What the—" The half-completed sentence slipped out before she could control it, but she cut herself off before she could finish it.
Yazawa Nico swivelled her head around sharply at the sound of her voice, crimson eyes locking onto her own almost immediately as she straightened up.
Maki opened her mouth again once she was sure an unprofessional curse wasn't going to make its way out in her speech, unintentional or not. "What are you doing? You know that you're not supposed to be moving around during your sessions." She tried to address the boy instead of his sister, though she could feel a scarlet gaze burning into the side of her neck.
The younger Yazawa shrugged as he slumped back onto his pillows, clutching one to his chest. "Bored," he replied, the words muffled by the fluff.
"Call yourself some doctor," the black-haired woman sniffed beside her. "Of course he's going to be bored. Aren't you forty-five minutes late, Doctor Nishikino?"
Maki squashed her temper as fast as it flared. It's not like you weren't going to be here for another hour. She kept that fact to herself as she kept her gaze focussed on her patient and not the obviously irate woman beside her. "I got caught up with some of my other patients," she explained to him. "Sorry about that."
"S'okay," he mumbled.
"How are you doing?" she asked him, determined to ignore the sputtering of the elder Yazawa beside her, noting down his vitals as she spoke. From the nurse's admission notes, he seemed to be responding well, but his dialysis appointment wasn't necessarily the purpose of her visit today.
"Okay. Tired," he tacked on as an afterthought. "I'm going to take a nap," he announced, burrowing into the mountain of pillows piled behind his head.
With her patient's safety assured, Maki finally turned to the short woman beside her. The faint hint of red on her cheeks was evidence of her persisting anger, and Maki had to swallow a ball of irritation before she addressed her at last. "I've got some news for you. Do you want to discuss this here, or…?" She intentionally left the end of her sentence vague.
Yazawa cast a look at her brother, whose eyes were now closed as he snored sleepily, and jerked her head in the direction of the curtains. "Outside, I suppose," she said.
Maki held the curtains open for her as the shorter woman brushed past her.
"Where?" she demanded, looking around the dialysis ward.
"Is that office over there good enough for you?" Maki asked her, her tone coming out snappier than she assumed it would, but she found that she didn't regret it. When Yazawa Nico didn't agree with something, it was impossible to get a word in until the self-proclaimed idol ranted herself out—picking out the tone of other peoples' speech was usually an ability that was beyond her.
Yazawa shrugged. "Fine, whatever. Makes no difference to me." She smirked. "I know all of you doctors like to assert your presences or whatever in those offices though."
Maki bit back the comment she wanted to make in response as she led the way into the nursing office. It was tiny, cramped, and in no way ideal, but at least there was a door behind them to close. She consulted her datapad out of habit, not necessity, as Yazawa crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "What?"
"We found a match for your brother," she informed her. She raised a dark red eyebrow as she watched the emotions flicker across the other woman's face for perhaps a second before she shut them down.
"What?"
Scowling, Maki repeated her sentence. "I said, we found a match for him."
Slowly, the black-haired woman uncrossed her arms and took two steps forward. Unfortunately, those two steps were all she needed to be practically face to face with her.
Cringing backwards ever so slightly instinctively, Maki was unused to the physical proximity of the other woman—something she in no way made allowance for outside of her roommates, who employed physical gestures of any kind very rarely.
"And you're sure you're not making this up?"
It was her turn to sputter. "W-What? Why would I make this up?"
Yazawa turned her nose up and closed her eyes in an expression of superiority. "Hmph. Just checking." She cracked open an eyelid. "You know, you only react to things when people accuse you of things that aren't true. Ever noticed that?"
Maki stared at her, utterly speechless as her brain tried to formulate something to say. A million thoughts galloped through her mind at about a hundred miles an hour, but no coherent words came out of her mouth. "But you—I—What?"
The black-haired woman snorted. "Y'know, I thought doctors were supposed to be professional." She shrugged. "But thanks for telling me, I guess, even though you were supposed to call me."
Surprisingly, there was significantly less of an edge to her voice than Maki was used to—or had come to expect from her. How I know that, I don't want to know.
She had somewhat regained her composure by the time Yazawa reached the end of her sentence.
"Well, I'm a busy person," she replied, endeavouring to make her tone as neutral as possible.
"Yeah, I'm aware," Yazawa retorted. "Still, it would've been nice to have a heads up. Is that all you wanted to say?" The caustic tone in her words had returned.
"No," she replied. "There're some forms you need to sign with your brother. I'll have them ready when he comes in for his next appointment."
"Whatever." Yazawa had turned to go and had her hand on the doorknob already before she turned back. The next words out of her mouth surprised her more than the observation that she had made earlier. "Hey…You're going to be doing the surgery, aren't you?"
Struck by the sudden reticent quality of her voice, Maki stared at her for a few heartbeats, startled into an answer. "Y-Yes, I am."
The other woman sniffed again. "Good," she muttered, before she turned the doorknob and let herself out of her office to leave Maki standing there, confused, awkward, and with a very uncharacteristic, unprofessional blush creeping up her cheeks.
I… don't understand her at all. Why would she have an argument with me, then tell me she's glad I'm going to be performing her brother's surgery? Who the hell has these kinds of mood swings? She shook her head once, dislodging dark red locks of hair as she resisted the temptation to run her hands through it.
She waited until she heard the swish of the curtains closing again before she left the office, dodging past another physician on her way out of the ward. Maki checked her watch as she waited for the elevator outside: 2001. She sighed, the stress of the day weighing down on her like a tonne of bricks. For once, she was glad that her newest batch of samples weren't in yet, because all Maki wanted to do was to get some sleep before she had to wake up the next morning.
Stowing her datapad in her office and locking it behind her, she waved goodbye to Kotori, who had just shown up for her evening shift, on her way out. There was a glow in the brunette's eyes and Maki remembered that Umi had said something about wedding planning before leaving the apartment that morning. She allowed herself a small, amused smile—there was no doubt, judging by the content expression that she was wearing alone, that Kotori had… convinced Umi into some sort of agreement for their upcoming wedding.
Now this, I have to see.
With that satisfactory thought in mind at what the brunette could've possibly come up with and gotten Umi to agree to, she left through the doors of the emergency department.
The air outside was only marginally cooler than what it had been that afternoon, but it was still a relief to breathe something that hadn't been filtered thousands of times over by the ventilation system in the hospital.
Maki stretched her arms above her head as she followed the familiar, ten-minute walk back to their apartment.
Right now, all I need is some sleep.
Honoka had promised her that her new samples would show up tomorrow afternoon by the latest, and she intended to get some actual rest before she returned to tackling the latest problems that had sprung up in her research.
"Thank you, Eli."
The words echoed in her mind as Eli leaned against the frosted glass door. It had stayed cool despite the thick whorls of steam and she pressed her forehead against it gratefully. Her brain had filed away those three words before it had hit her and she had stopped to realize the weight of the phrase. What it meant.
Had it necessarily been a bad thing? Somehow, she didn't think so.
But nonetheless, the rational part of her brain warned her to be cautious; although she didn't think Toujou had any reason to lie to her, there was still the matter of her advisor, whom she could throw further than she trusted him. She hadn't forgotten his blatant threat and Eli knew without even thinking about it that he would have more than one objection to the way they had been interacting.
The thought of Toujou's chief advisor, though, paled in comparison to what she imagined Umi and Maki's reactions would be. She might have tentatively given Toujou her trust, but she knew her two friends wouldn't, not by any stretch of the imagination. They would be concerned for her, and Eli couldn't see an easy way to convince them when she wasn't one hundred percent sure of Toujou's intentions herself. While she was certain it was nothing malicious, she knew she wouldn't be able to explain the nature of their relationship to her friends in a way that would satisfy them.
She turned the cool metal handle, the shower drizzling to a stop. The remnants of water swirled around the grated drain and with it, she imagined her dilemmas following suit.
Dripping water on the floor, Eli wrapped a towel around herself as she stepped out of the shower. Her hand slipped for a moment against the slick surface of the shower door as she groped for a comb, intending to untangle the blonde mess of hair on her head. Clipping up her bra and pulling on a shirt and her underwear, she went to wipe the fog from the mirror with a hand.
Suddenly, the lights in the bathroom turned off, plunging her into darkness. Eli froze, her heart beginning to race. She hadn't heard the sound of the front door being unlocked, nor had there been the sound of a greeting; the only way to turn off the bathroom lights from the outside was if someone flipped the circuit breaker in the kitchen next to the front door. Umi had texted her earlier to let her know that she would be out for the evening, and while Maki was due home soon, she would've had the brains not to turn off all the lights in the apartment. But if it wasn't Maki, then who? An intruder?
"Who is it?" she called out. There was no point in pretending she wasn't there—whoever it was already knew from the sound of the shower that had been running a minute previously.
There was no answer.
Feeling around the sink countertop in the darkness, she closed her fingers around the hilt of trench knife that Umi had given her. She had taken to carrying it everywhere with her—even in the bathroom—a habit that she had picked up after spending only a few nights at the district building full of people she didn't trust—save for one, perhaps.
"Hello?" she called again, straining to hear in the utter silence over the sound of her rapid heartbeat.
There was no reply, but Eli thought she could hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Her fingers tightened around the knife as she pressed her back against the wall of the bathroom, anticipating where the door would open and placing herself in the best possible position to react in case it was an intruder.
The door slammed open, and Eli had a momentary glimpse of a figure dressed in all black, outlined by the moonlight beyond before he burst through the door. The blur of a silver knife drove into the wall above her head with an audible crunch as she ducked, dodging under his other arm and escaping into the hallway.
Someone grabbed her hair from behind, yanking her backwards and Eli stumbled. Scrambling to her feet, she lashed out with the knife in her right hand. She missed, but at least her assailant knew she was armed now, though how much the fact might've deterred him, she didn't know. Slowly, she backed into the shadows of her room, her mind working on overdrive. What the hell? Who—
Before she could complete the thought, the man charged in through the bedroom door; she had no time to react as he locked an arm around her neck, shoving her against the wall. His other arm twisted the wrist of her hand that was holding onto the trench knife, forcing it away from them at an angle so that she couldn't stab him with it.
Eli tried to slip out of his grasp, but it was pointless. He was far too strong for her to break his hold on her throat with her one free hand digging into his forearm even if she could wrest her other hand out of his grip and somehow, she was able to process the fact that if he kept going, soon, he wouldn't need the knife that he had somehow tucked back into his belt.
Over the sound of her pounding heartbeat and desperate struggle for breath, she heard the sound of the front door opening again. A few agonizing seconds passed.
"Eli?" Maki's voice called in the darkness. "Are you home?"
Maki narrowed her eyes at the darkened apartment. She was sure someone was home, because the front door had been unlocked, but she was unsure of why Eli wanted to spend her evening in complete darkness without the air conditioning unit on, especially given the summer heat.
Her sense of unease sharpened as she spotted the open circuit breaker panel next to the refrigerator in the kitchen, and she called out irritably again. "Eli? Why the hell are all the lights off?"
There was no response.
Maki could feel her heart beginning to pound against her sternum. Something felt off—there was something very, very wrong about the situation in front of her right now and she felt her hand slide into the pocket of the lab coat where she kept the gun Umi had given her, making sure it was still there. A cold sweat broke out over her skin as she strode over to the circuit panel and reset the breaker.
The lights blinked on in the kitchen area at once, though the rest of the living room was still dark. She spotted light coming from down the hallway and she made her way over to it, poking her head around the corner. The door to the lit, empty bathroom was open, and she could make out wet footprints leading into the bedroom at the end—Eli's.
Maki advanced down the hallway, steps directed and purposeful, but she couldn't control the way her heart thumped against her ribcage. Breathe, Nishikino. It was easier said than done—her breaths were coming in fast and shallow and she could almost feel the pH of her blood increasing.
Rounding the corner, it took her perhaps a fraction of a heartbeat to process what was happening in front of her, her body snapping into action before her mind had a chance to really think about what she was doing. Maki drew the gun from the pocket of her lab coat and released the safety on it, the click of the small piece of weaponry causing the man—she assumed it was a man—dressed from head to foot in all black to turn his head towards her slightly. He made no motion to move from where he had Eli pinned against the wall, thick, gloved fingers around her throat.
Maki raised the gun to shoulder level, icy calm spreading from her lungs as her fingers tightened around the handgun's grip. "Let her go," she growled, enunciating each word slowly. Her index finger inched towards the trigger. Even if she'd never fired a gun at an actual person before, she knew the theory.
The man glanced at the weapon in her head and for a second, it was as though he was going to comply before three things happened in such quick succession that it was almost impossible to tell who had done what first.
The man released his grip on Eli's throat and wrist, dropping her and drawing the knife in his belt at the same time Eli forced the blade of the knife in her freed hand upwards. There was a single heartbeat of silence before a burst of scarlet blossomed against the near-pristine surroundings of the bedroom; the glass of the window shattered in the background the same moment she heard a cry of pain punctuated by the sound of a knife blade clattering to the ground.
Maki had no time to worry about the man that had smashed the bedroom window in his attempt to escape as she dashed forward, catching Eli before she hit the floor.
"Maki," she breathed out between gritted teeth, hand pressed tightly against her side. Maki prised Eli's cold, clammy fingers away from her hip only to catch the sight of ruby red staining through the thin material of her shirt.
"Dammit," she swore out loud, wrapping her free arm around the blonde's shoulder in an effort to support her.
Eli's eyes were squeezed shut, her breathing coming in short, rapid breaths as her nails dug into Maki's forearm. When she opened them, the pupils of her blue eyes were dilated as she stared back at her.
Maki seized a fistful of Eli's shirt to press it against the long, jagged wound that curved upwards from around her waist to her back in the shape of a hook. She didn't need to examine the injury in detail to know its severity; the amount of blood already on the floor was a testament to how fast she needed to act. "Eli," she snapped, "stay awake, do you hear me?"
If there was a reply, she didn't hear it as Maki fumbled with the personal safety device hooked on an inside pocket of her lab coat. The tiny plastic transmitter been given to all medical personnel who worked at the hospital in case they found themselves in a situation where they needed help; she jammed her finger against the button, knowing that it would alert the code team in the emergency department of the hospital and lead them quickly to her location on the university campus.
Eli's forehead dropped against her shoulder as she dug in the pockets of her coat. Fuck, I know it's in here! Where is it? "Don't close your eyes," she ordered again as she lowered her friend to the floor and snatched a few pillows off the bedstead, stuffing them underneath her knees and throwing a blanket over her upper body.
Her fingers brushed against the item she was looking for—a needle she always carried with her in case she came across someone experiencing a severe allergic reaction. There was no time to site the intramuscular injection as she pulled off the cap of the needle and jabbed it into Eli's thigh. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing.
She shook Eli's shoulders again in an effort to keep her awake, all too aware of the cool, pale skin underneath her bloody fingers, trying to ignore the sound of her shallow gasps for breath despite the epinephrine injection. "Goddammit Eli," she cursed, throat raw and aching. "If you die on me, I swear to god, I'll bring you back just so I can kill you myself for agreeing to do something so fucking stupid."
The sound of loud footsteps at the front door registered in her senses as Maki heard the code team stumble into the apartment. "In here," she called, raising her voice as a bustle of paramedics swooped in on the scene.
She let one of them pull an oxygen mask over Eli's nose and mouth before she sat back on her heels and watched them carry her out of the room. One of the paramedics paused to speak to her. "We'll meet you in Emerg, Doctor Nishikino."
Maki nodded blankly as she stared after them. She held her breath for a long moment until her lungs burned; exhaustion set in her limbs as the last of the adrenaline surge left her body, leaving her dazed, numb and listless.
The past thirty minutes felt unreal, as though she'd been watching from the sidelines in a badly-filmed movie. The world tilted, the colours wrong and red. Nothing even smelled right; the acrid, metallic tang of blood permeated her sense of smell and everything was suddenly eerily silent—not the silence of sleep, but the complete, unending absence of sound.
She tried to disregard how badly her arm was shaking as she reached into the pocket of her shirt, painting a faint bloody trail across the white of her lab coat as she pulled out her phone. She brought up her list of contacts, picking one from the top and held the metallic device to her ear as the call connected.
Umi answered on the first ring. "Maki? What is it?"
She swallowed; Maki had to clear her throat before she could speak, and she cringed away at the sound of her own voice. "Umi, you need to come back. Now."
Nozomi settled herself at her office desk, picking up the police report that Koizumi had put on it the day before. Its front page featured a photograph of the bounty hunter that had been killed the day after the bombing of the outer district and she vaguely remembered that Kouchou had told her they were still looking into the details of his involvement.
She had just picked up her pen to read through the rest of the report when the phone on her desk beeped. She frowned; she had given Koizumi specific instructions not to let anyone in to see her that morning and she had half a mind to ignore it and let it continue to ring, but her sense of caution won her over in the end—Koizumi wouldn't be calling her without a very good reason.
Nozomi picked up the phone.
"Yes?"
"T-Toujou-sama? It's about Ayase-san. She was attacked last night."