Putting Pen To Paper - Naegami Story

International Hope! Arc - 29

The walls of the warehouse were crumbling, tall cracks that spread from one end to another. The door was still intact, and shut. Togami waited for the people in front of him to enter, impatient that he had been discarded to the back of the gathering of people despite his high position. He could nearly feel Makoto's presence once he was inside, it was the same warm, familiar feeling from when he had been investigating with Makoto during the Killing Game, only now, he couldn't look to him for a quiet reassurance in his heart that things would be okay. He glanced at the walls, finding nothing peculiar or out of place. A small circle of three Liberation Force members gathered around a conspicuous pile of wood on the floor, they were slightly poking at it as if it might bite them if they were too forward in their advances. Scoffing, he moved forward, kicking the wood out of the way with one foot, revealing the pitch-black hole hiding underneath. It looked large enough to fit a person down, and one of the members started to lean over it precariously.

"Hey," he warned, putting an arm in front of their torso, then leaning over to pick up one of the disturbed wooden planks. He dropped it into the hole and waited for the sound of it falling to echo back up to him. There was no indication that it ever met any kind of floor, it had just disappeared into the shadows of the hole. "It's a trap," he grumbled, turning away, disappointed with the dimness of the forces sent to look for the supposed new leader of the Ultimate Despair. They could have carelessly thrown themselves down into an endless pit of death without a second thought had he not intervened. This was the search team supposed to take down the leader of an Ultimate Despair group? It was severely underwhelming, and troubling. With this team, there was no guarantee they would even be able to save Makoto and Kyoko if they found them due to the lack of competence. Not that he would ever let that happen-those two would get out of there before he did, by whatever means necessary. More Liberation Force members would be catching up to their group in an hour or so, they had been slow to gather necessary supplies but would still be important, so they couldn't just stay at the main camp.

He walked slowly across the cement flooring, the cracks in it sprouting up small greenery, grass poking out in hopes of grasping onto life. Byakuya didn't bother trying to avoid the cracks that spilled over the concrete like an intricate cobweb-some cracks wider and longer, others thin and spindly. He didn't believe in superstitions, generally, but stepping on the floor still made him anxious, the hairs on his neck standing up. Was this all a trap? He went over the information he knew about all this, glaring down at the small specks of remaining green that slowly trickled away as it approached a rather large section of cement that had cracks all the way around it. It was near the shape of a square, thick cracks outlining its rough shape. Carefully, he stepped on it. No life budded in any of the thick spaces, which he figured it should. There was a larger area where plants could sprout from, but instead it was only dark black between the pieces of cement. He continued past, to where Hina was tracing the wall with her finger, then pressing down on a large slab.

"Help me with this," she beckoned him closer. Humoring her, he pressed his hands against the slab and pushed with her, the concrete turning to the side slowly. Seeing this, a few others came to help push, and eventually, there was a passageway large enough for a person to walk through. A glimmer of hope rose in Byakuya's throat as he stepped past, into a dark passageway, and he shined his flashlight on the steps in front of him. A long staircase was behind the slab, apparently, which he looked back to see that in the center of it was a metal rod that allowed it to spin like a door.

"Togami," Hina pushed past him, allowing herself to be the first sacrifice to the darkness as they went down the stairs. They seemed endless, but Hina plowed forward without batting an eye as if she was sure there would be good waiting at the bottom. Byakuya's legs were sore by the time the flashlight allowed him to see the end of the stairs, but the rest of the space they led to was blocked by the cramped ceiling above. The place smelled like dirt, decomposition, and it filled his every pore. They must be deep in the earth, by now. From just the rancid smell, he half hoped that Makoto and Kyoko wouldn't be at the bottom waiting for him. It just brought more shaky visions of what could have happened to them, more specifically, it fogged his mind with the images of the corpses of his friends.