Disclaimer: I do not own No. 6.
Inukashi was now in charge of the map, and, as a test, was told to guide them back from another unfamiliar area (though this time Nezumi had chosen a place he was somewhat familiar with, just in case). Her attempt was far more successful than Rikiga's had been, so she was to have the role permanently.
Now that that was sorted out, they were having a relatively calm lesson. It was actually the smoothest any lesson had gone yet, so Shion was feeling optimistic that it might actually turn out well.
"Why are you going so slowly?" Rikiga asked, confused. Lately Shion had been driving faster than he had the first few lessons (at least, he was driving closer to the speed limit, enough that any cars around wouldn't have reason to complain).
"I'm going as fast as the other cars are," Shion told him. Sure enough, the rest of the cars were slowing down as well.
"I know there's a lot of cars here, but you wouldn't think they'd be slowing down this much," commented Inukashi.
"Unless something is blocking one of the lanes up ahead," suggested Nezumi.
When the cars in front of them stopped, it became clear that this was indeed what had happened. "I wonder what's causing it," Inukashi said, curious.
"Are there train tracks nearby? It could be a train." Rikiga spoke up.
"I know there's one around here somewhere, but I don't think it's this close." Nezumi replied.
For about half an hour, none of the cars around them moved, though several of the people inside the cars complained loudly. "I haven't seen a train stop traffic this long before, anyway," Inukashi muttered.
Eventually, the cars began moving forward again, though still not very fast. It soon became obvious that only one of the lanes was no longer blocked, since cars were merging into that lane as soon as they could. This happened to be the lane Shion was in, which was both good and bad. Good because he didn't have to worry about merging into another lane with several other cars trying to get the same spot, yet bad because it meant that several other cars were constantly trying to go in front of the car.
When they finally reached the source of the traffic jam, they saw a car had crashed into a tree at the side of the road. Then another car had crashed into it.
"I hope everyone's okay," Shion said, staring at the scene.
"Judging by the two guys yelling at each other at the side of the road, I'd say they are... Neither of them look injured, just annoyed." Nezumi assured him.
Not even five minutes after leaving the crash behind, the cars surrounding them slowed down again.
"What's going on now?" Inukashi inquired. After another twenty-five minutes or so of slowly inching forward, they saw that a car had broken down.
After that, there was a car that had rolled off of a open carrier transport truck and ended up blocking all three lanes (after a half hour wait, the truck returned and the embarrassed driver took the car away). Then there were a few people who suddenly stopped their cars in the middle of the road to talk.
Just when they were begining to think that was the last of the traffic jams, they were forced to stop again.
"What NOW?" Rikiga grumbled, irritated.
"Remember that train you were talking about earlier? It's right there." Nezumi explained, pointing ahead of the car.