“Lady Kaguya…”
“Lady Kaguya… are you all right…”
“…Lady… Kaguya, wake up… don’t… sleep…”
The voices seemed to come from every direction at once — sometimes like whispered murmurs right beside her ear, sometimes like shouts echoing from another mountaintop, drifting near then far, never quite clear enough to catch.
The moment she tried to focus, a buzzing kicked up in her ears.
The light around her warped and dimmed by turns.
Countless familiar faces flickered past in front of her, then vanished just as fast.
The whole world felt flipped upside down — bizarre, kaleidoscopic, unreal.
She wanted to open her eyes, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pry them open.
Gradually her breathing started getting harder, too.
Her body felt like it was sinking into the ocean, her limbs completely unresponsive.
So thirsty… everything hurts so much…
Shinomiya Kaguya opened her mouth — her throat felt like it was on fire, so parched she couldn’t get a single word out.
Even though she could feel that the air around her was warm, her body wouldn’t stop shaking, as if she’d been dropped into an ice pit.
“Lady Kaguya, first… drink… some water.”
The familiar voice rang out beside her ear again, this time clearer than at any point before.
Shinomiya Kaguya opened her eyes.
Her wine-red irises caught the reflection of the delicate features of the blonde girl in front of her.
Her vision was hazy, but she still recognized who it was.
“Haya… saka…”
“It’s me, Lady Kaguya.”
That was the answer that came back.
Warm liquid flowed down her throat — but instead of the relief she’d been expecting, like rain after a long drought, all Kaguya felt was the sensation of countless tiny knives slicing her throat open.
It hurt.
But she was also so thirsty.
She wanted to throw up, but couldn’t.
Her stomach felt utterly hollow, stomach acid eating away at the lining — like a fire blazing inside her gut.
“It hurts… so much…” Shinomiya Kaguya murmured.
Once again, figures began surfacing in her mind.
There were men, there were women — their faces twisted into nauseating smiles, some fawning, some sycophantic.
She recognized them, every single one.
Nothing but a pack of greedy little schemers chasing their own gain.
And then there were her brothers — smiling too, on the surface, and yet the feeling they gave off was so cruel, so cold-blooded.
As if she wasn’t their sister at all, but an enemy…
It hurt so much.
It was so revolting…
Just as Shinomiya Kaguya was struggling to push all these images out of the world she was trapped in, another face appeared.
The owner of that face had to be a woman.
Even though she couldn’t see her clearly, the warmth she gave off was something Kaguya had never felt before — and it pulled an instinctive word straight up out of her.
“Mom…”
As if she’d heard the girl’s cry, the woman smiled — and then her face began to blur, fast.
“Don’t… don’t go…” The source of this chapter is g.com.
Shinomiya Kaguya instinctively tried to reach for her, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t catch up.
All she could do was watch helplessly as that face receded further and further away, leaving her alone in a darkness so thick she couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face.
She had no idea how much time had passed before the world lit up again.
A face appeared in her field of vision — golden hair… so familiar, but she couldn’t put a name to it.
Then the person suddenly spoke, the voice sounding like it was coming from the other end of the world.
“Lady Kaguya, I’m heading out now.”
‘No… don’t… don’t leave me here… all alone.’
Shinomiya Kaguya struggled, wanting to scream out — but no sound would come.
All she could do was watch helplessly as the figure faded out of her sight.
Once again, the world dropped into darkness.
“Hayasaka Ai… even you’ve betrayed me?”
The girl curled herself up into a tight ball, as if that was the only way she had left to shut the entire world out.
So cold…
…
“From the sound of it, you set out this morning, and your young lady’s been unconscious this whole time.
After all those hours, you sure there’s still a fire going at your camp?” Isac asked.
“There is.
Our camp is in an abandoned mine shaft.
I found a pretty good stockpile of coal inside, and if you damp it down and let it smolder, it can last a long while,” Hayasaka Ai explained.
“Ah, that makes sense.” Isac nodded.
With coal in the picture, it really was feasible to leave Shinomiya Kaguya alone at the camp while she was unconscious.
Swap coal out for firewood, and the fire probably wouldn’t have made it past mid-morning.
“Earlier you mentioned that you and Ms.
Yukinoshita were also crash survivors?” Hayasaka Ai asked curiously.
She’d been wanting to bring this up ever since they left the cabin, and had only just now worked up to actually asking it.
“Yeah.
Although the plane we were on shouldn’t have been the same one as yours.”
“I figured.”
When Hayasaka Ai heard Isac say they hadn’t been on the same plane, it didn’t strike her as strange.
The aircraft she’d been on was the Shinomiya family’s exclusive private jet — it wasn’t open to outside passengers, so of course there was no way the two of them could have been on the same flight.
She’d simply been thinking that the rate of plane crashes around here seemed weirdly high.
Little did she know that the plane she’d been on and the one Isac had been on weren’t even the same type of aircraft to begin with…
“Did you and Ms.
Yukinoshita know each other before all this?”
“Something like that.” Isac thought it over for a beat.
In his past life he’d already known about Yukinoshita Yukino — it was just that, back then, she’d had no idea he existed.
Seeing Isac confirm it, Hayasaka Ai couldn’t help but nod, probably figuring she’d guessed right.
After all, she’d already noticed earlier that Yukinoshita Yukino’s mobility seemed pretty limited.
If the two of them hadn’t already known each other, nobody would willingly drag along a stranger with a bad leg as deadweight while trying to survive in conditions this extreme.
“I can tell you’ve been taking really good care of Ms.
Yukinoshita,” Hayasaka Ai said with genuine admiration.
Aside from some tears in her clothes, every other inch of Yukinoshita Yukino had been remarkably clean.
There was no way that had happened without serious effort on Isac’s part.
“She’s been taking care of me too.” Find the original chapter at g.com.
Isac wasn’t about to take all the credit.
He really had done a lot for Yukinoshita Yukino, but at the same time, she’d been doing everything she could to help him too — just held back, mostly, by circumstances outside her control.
Hayasaka Ai took a long, searching look at Isac.
The time she’d spent with him on the trail had given her at least some read on the man walking next to her.
There was no doubt about it — this guy was a good person.
Compared to him, that whole crowd back at the Shinomiya family wasn’t even fit to tie his shoes.
And yet, ironically enough, in the real world the social pecking order between the two sides was probably the exact opposite.
Just went to show how true the old saying really was — the good die young, and the rotten ones live forever.
Thinking about that, Hayasaka Ai couldn’t help letting out a quiet sigh.
The thought she’d been pushing down to the back of her mind started bubbling back up, and there was no avoiding it this time.
“So… umm…” Hayasaka Ai hesitated for a second, then decided she was going to come out and say it anyway.
But the moment she thought about what she was actually about to ask, she couldn’t stop her face from heating up.
“What is it?”
“I… I actually have a favor to ask, but it’s kind of hard to bring up, so I’m not really sure if I should…”
“You want me to let you move your young lady over to my place?”
Hayasaka Ai’s mouth opened, then closed.
A trace of bittersweet resignation crossed her face — though, given that she was still wearing the bra eye-shield at this moment, you couldn’t actually see her expression clearly at all.
She let out a long sigh and said, “So even a little thought like that — I really can’t get past you, can I.”
“But don’t worry, we’d only be staying with you temporarily.
You won’t need to lift a finger over food on our account — I’ll take care of that myself.
And we’ll hand over a portion as rent.
Does that sound fair to you?” Hayasaka Ai said earnestly.
“Sure, that works.
But forget about the rent — that cabin isn’t even mine to begin with.
As for food… we can figure that out together.” Isac gave a small smile.
Even if Hayasaka Ai hadn’t brought it up on her own, he was going to find a way to pull this jack-of-all-trades maid onto their side anyway.
Not for any other reason — just for that pistol in her hand.
“Thank you.”
Seeing that Isac had agreed, the weight that had been pressing down on Hayasaka Ai’s chest finally lifted.
A bright smile spread across her face before she could stop it, and her tone lightened up too — no longer quite so stiff and by-the-book.
“The mine shaft isn’t far from us now.
Once we get there, Mr.
Isac, you could go deeper into the shaft and have a look around.
Earlier, since I needed to take care of Lady Kaguya, I only did a quick sweep.
There’s a decent chance there’s more undiscovered coal hidden in there.
Have a poke around — maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to bring even more coal back with us.”
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Samsara Game: Starting in The Long Dark with My Waifus
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