Chapter 15: The helicopter.
May 10, 8:15 AM
The next morning the search, temporarily interrupted during the night, resumed. Moving during the day, in fact, was much easier than in the dark. In the command tent, Ayami Ogino was drinking a cup of black coffee. Her face was pale and she looked sleepy.
"You look like you're about to collapse." A male voice told her.
She looked up, noticing her colleague Morofushi staring at her worriedly. She snorted and ran her hands through her hair.
"I haven't slept a wink all night…" She said.
He looked at her apprehensively.
"Maybe you should get some sleep… It's not healthy to give up sleep."
Ayami shot him a dirty look.
"If you haven't noticed, there's a girl out there who intends to commit suicide… If she hasn't already!"
The man nervously stroked his mustache. He knew it, but neglecting health wouldn't help the search.
"We're doing our best... But unfortunately, sometimes it's not enough." He stated.
"Cheer up, you two!" A male voice, one they knew well, intervened.
The two inspectors turned, noticing their peer Jugo Yokomizo approaching.
"The search is just beginning, and the forest is quite vast. You'll see, we'll find her, alive!" He added.
The other two looked at him skeptically: if the girl hadn't already committed the extreme act, she could do so at any moment. Furthermore, the vastness of the environment itself was an additional obstacle to the search. They could only hope that the search teams would be lucky... But they would need a lot of it.
In one of the tents, the girls from Team Anglerfish (Hana, Yukari, Saori, Mako) were sitting at a table, reluctantly eating a breakfast of coffee and donuts provided by the local police. They were all down in the dumps: the imminent closure of their academy, combined with Miho's decision, had thrown them into total despair and anguish. In the space of a day, everything had gone to pieces.
"I was thinking..." Saori said.
"What?" Yukari asked, turning to look at her.
"Why doesn't Ooarai send a team of volunteers here?"
"They're all probably still reeling from the news of the closure... I doubt they'll be able to help." Mako replied, then took a sip of coffee.
Hana nodded. The news had sent shockwaves through the entire academy, destroying the morale of everyone: students, crew, and others who lived on board. Not exactly the mood for searching.
"Besides, the Saunders, Glorianas, Kuros, and Maginots are already on site, as well as the police and forest ranger teams," Her friend added.
Irritated, Yukari jumped to her feet.
"Even if Ooarai is going to close down, that's no reason to leave Nishizumi-dono in the lurch!" She exclaimed.
Hana ran a hand over her face.
"And to make matters worse, we can't use tanks… The forest is too thick. That will make the search longer."
"The alternative would be to give up… But we definitely won't do that! Miho is a dear friend of ours, and our captain! We won't let her die!" Saori declared fervently.
Her companions nodded without hesitation: they would not abandon Miho to her fate, otherwise they would never be able to look at themselves in the mirror again. They would find her and bring her back to Ooarai, even if it meant combing every acre of forest.
Meanwhile, in the Kuromorimine camp, Maho and Erika were in the command tent, sitting around a folding table and busy eating a breakfast consisting of a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cake) and two mugs of non-alcoholic beer. Unlike the Ooarai, the two Kuro feasted lavishly, aware that eating empty stomachs would not help them in their searches. However, the eldest of the Nishizumi family was distressed. Her younger sister was out there, intending to commit suicide, if she hadn't already. If that happened, the remorse for not having been able to save her would torment her for the rest of her life. Every now and then, the image of Miho's corpse appeared in her mind, hanging from a tree or inert on the ground, due to an overdose of drugs. She closed her eyes and shook her head to push those frightening visions away.
Calm down… Until proven otherwise, she's still alive.
She said to herself.
She looked around: the Kuromorimine students (or at least those who had agreed to join the search teams) were standing or sitting at tables, eating or talking. Among them she noticed Koume Akaboshi, sitting at a table with a funeral face.
"Have you been here before, Kommandantin?" Her deputy suddenly asked.
She turned to look at her.
"What makes you think that?" She asked in turn.
"From the way you're orienting yourselves, you seem to know the area well."
Having said that, she took a bite of cake, chewing carefully.
Maho hesitated before answering her:
"I was on a trip here with my family… Years ago."
The blonde looked at her confused.
"An unusual place for a family trip…" She commented.
"Despite its sinister reputation, this place is also a tourist destination… In fact, it is precisely its macabre notoriety that attracts more tourists." Maho said.
"A bit like those castles in Scotland that are said to be haunted by ghosts?"
The brunette nodded.
"But unlike the Scottish ghosts, people here actually commit suicide."
Erika snorted and crossed her arms.
"I have heard about it on several occasions, but this is the first time I have set foot in it."
And if it were not for the fact that Miho is the commander's sister, I would have been careful not to come here…
She thought.
She had never had much sympathy for Miho, whom she judged to be too awkward and shy, unsuitable for the role of vice-commander, which she had aspired to but which had gone to her captain's younger sister, in what was an act of pure nepotism. A bad decision, as seen during the finals of the last tournament, when Miho had stupidly abandoned the Kuromorimine flag tank, leaving it at the mercy of the Pravda tanks, who had easily eliminated it. This had condemned their team to defeat, preventing them from obtaining their tenth consecutive victory, and Erika had never forgiven her for that. The roar of a helicopter distracted her from those thoughts. She looked up at the sky, noticing one, heading northeast.
"There's a civilian helicopter above us." She said.
Maho shrugged.
"It must be from some TV station… I saw a couple yesterday, one from NHK and one from Nippon TV." She said nonchalantly.
The blonde nodded, going back to eating.