Yuko couldn't get off the school grounds quickly enough. Yet before she could walk through the gate, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
The sudden grab caught Yuko off guard, and she turned around to swing her fist at whoever was trying to restrain her.
She wasn't sure how big of a punishment was written down for assaulting a teacher, but Satoru just barely blocking the punch from reaching his head meant she probably earned it. He flinched as the first collided with his arm but he remained in place otherwise.
“You knew, didn't you!?” she yelled. As she yanked her shoulder free from his other arm, she turned to face Satoru.
He frowned. “No, of course I didn't. I just wanted to wish you luck, and to be careful,” he paused for a moment and turned his gaze away from Yuko. She wasn't the only person trying to leave.
Satoru cleared his throat and spoke up once more with a louder voice. “The collapse of the tanks caused a flood that destroyed a lot of the East District’s center, and damaged a lot more. Some parts aren't accessible right now. Refugee camps are located near the borders, if you're going to be looking for your family, start there before putting yourself at risk.”
Yuko didn't linger to hear anything else.
Her home was most likely destroyed. Everything she had left of her life could be gone. She could be sleeping in the streets for the rest of her life. She didn't have time to waste on listening to someone who could never understand.
She couldn't even reach her home. Even worming her way past police just to enter East, every road she took ended up being a dead end. Buildings collapsed, escapes broken, streets underwater, she wasn't getting any closer to the crappy building their apartment was in.
She eventually tried to scale one of the intact buildings to try and circumvent one of the road blocks. The fire escape may be gone but she's been scaling walls without them for years. At the top, she tried to get a better grasp of her surroundings. The destruction was so much worse from a higher vantage point. Most of the buildings close to the tanks had been reduced to rubble, while nearly all of the center of East had collapsed against each other, like a messed up game of dominoes. She could recognize her apartment building between them.
The question was just how to get there. Climbing down and scaling the next building would be terrible on her arm and take for-
“Hey! Come down before you fall!” a voice cried out towards her
“Careful, it's not stable!” another voice added.
A group of rescuers. They weren't going to let her go, were they? She looked at the building ahead, it stood crooked but that was the worst of it. She should be able to make that jump.
“We're here to help! You won't be in- don't jump!”
She leaped.
Crossing the distance turned out to be rather easy. When her feet hit the stone, it cracked. She could barely register her fall before everything went black.
When Yuko came to, it was with a terrible headache. She groaned and tried to reach for her head, only to find her right hand to be stuck. This alerted her immediately, causing her to sit up. She was laying on a small bed, her right hand cuffed to it. Her left hand was free to rub her sore, only to flinch.
“You're lucky that bump on your head is the only significant gift that fall left you with,” a voice spoke up. It sounded vaguely familiar but she couldn't place it.
Looking for the source, there was a man in protective gear standing by her bed. He offered her what she can only presume to be an ice pack. One of the rescuers from before.
Yuko sighed as she accepted the pack as she looked around. She was in an infirmary. A large one too, from the look of it. Multiple doctors and nurses were frantically calling each other and darting back and forth tending to the wounded.
“What's up with the handcuffs? I'm the only one here with them,” she asked as she registered the fact.
“Recommendation to keep you out of trouble. Was told you'd just run off so long as you could still walk, and I don't doubt it.”
Yuko huffed. Who told him that? Then she became worried. Was her dad here? “Where am I?”
“North border infirmary. But little miss, if you're gonna be alright, I need to get back to work. There's more people to get out of that wreckage.”
He doesn't even allow her to respond before stepping off.
Yuko laid back down and closed her eyes. She should at least wait until the throbbing faded.
Yuko wasn't sure how much time had passed when she felt a hand on her bandage. Her eyes opened to look at the source.
Shizumi.
“Climbing buildings and wading through filthy water isn't going to keep your cut clean, Yuko,” she scolded calmly as she took a bite from a food bar.
If it weren't for the sheen of sweat on her forehead and the hints at her hair becoming disheveled, Yuko wouldn't be able to tell that Shizumi had likely been running around the infirmary for hours now, taking care of people. It was almost comforting, if not a little cold.
The younger woman groaned and turned her head away. The sudden jerk hurt. “My house got wrecked. I don't even know where my dad is. I don't care. Get these cuffs off me.”
There's a small sigh. “There isn't much you can do about it, though. You should rest. Move your thoughts elsewhere.”
Capable of predicting Yuko's question of what with, Shizumi offered Yuko a folder of some kind. Shini’s great journey into the unknown.
The expedition.
Shizumi spoke up as well. “I'll probably be applying. You'll root for me so that I'll get chosen, right?”
Yuko wanted to get angry with Shizumi, but she bit her tongue. The doctor had been nothing but kind with her, and she deserved as much in return.
She had to force it a little, but she managed a lopsided smile. “But then who's gonna take care of me when I get stabbed and scold me when I'm not doing my part?” she jokes.
Shizumi smiled. “I'm sure anyone here would jump at the opportunity to take my job from now. There's plenty of people who care about you, Yuko.”
A third voice entered the conversation from further in the room. “Akai, the wound is clean, can you stitch it?”
“Duty calls,” Shizumi said, wrapping up what was left of her food. She then turned her attention to the person who's called her. “Be right there!”
As Shizumi stepped away, Yuko’s attention fell to the pamphlet. Not much else to do while chained to a bed with a headache.
A lot of the information in there was trying to quell unrest and fears. It said that expanding our knowledge would only be a benefit, which makes sense, but brushing off kegare in return felt wrong.
Applications would be opened, allowing people to sort themselves into several categories based on their skills. Then a certain number of people would be drawn from each to form a 15 man party, assuming their application wasn't a lie or forged. The volunteers would then be trained over the course of a few months to round out their abilities, before being sent off with their equipment. Explore for at least 2 weeks, map out the tunnels, then return. It wasn't difficult, all things considered. And you could get far with 2 weeks of roaming time.
Yuko's brow furrowed as she looked over the list of skills. Yuko considered herself a survivalist. She was pretty stealthy. Athletic too. It was all by necessity, though. It wasn't like she had any proper training. What would her odds be of qualifying based on that? Then again, how many people would even be applying for a glorified suicide mission?
Her eyes wandered further down the page.
The minimum age of entry was 25.
Of course it was.
Yuko sighed. If only…
No.
Just this once, she wasn't going to be wishing things were different. She was going to make things different.
She was going on that expedition, whether she was invited to or not.