The bus slowed down. The view ahead was steadily closed off by gray concrete.
It was a tunnel.
The ceiling lights began streaming backward at regular intervals. Darkness consumed the view outside the windows, reflecting the vehicle's interior against the glass. Yuna's profile and the rows of seats lined up beyond her were superimposed upon it.
Eiji tracked the passing lights, stopping once he counted past ten. The tunnels around here were all supposed to be short.
And yet—right then, the sound of the engine grew distant.
(Huh...?)
Rather than growing distant, it felt more like the noise was being dragged into the depths of his ears. Eiji tightened his throat and swallowed hard. Even so, the sound did not return. The persistent rattling of the emergency exit by his right ear had cut off abruptly, falling completely silent.
"Wait, what is this?"
Up near the front seats, Miu's voice pitched with panic. Gakuto, who had stopped in the aisle toward the front, leaned toward the driver's seat.
"Hey, driver! Hey!"
The driver's hands remained on the steering wheel, completely motionless. The teacher was frozen mid-sentence, mouth hanging open.
The only ones moving were the students.
(What's going on...?)
Eiji twisted his body toward the window. A truck in the oncoming lane sat frozen, tilted at a slight angle. Across its tires, which should have been spinning, stripes of shadow were burned in place. The tunnel lights had stopped streaming, too. Plumes of white exhaust hung suspended in a clump at the tip of the tailpipe. Preserved in the very shape of being scattered by the wind, only the outline had hardened.
Toward the front of the aisle, a student held a smartphone high overhead. Even as he tilted it around, the screen remained unchanged. The raised arm sank back down limply, and the student beside him grabbed his shoulder.
"Hey, driver! Why the hell are you frozen? Hey!"
Gakuto grabbed the driver's shoulder and shook him. The body swayed back and forth, but the moment he let go, both arm and torso snapped right back to their original positions—just like a compressed spring rebounding into shape.
Someone stood up, while someone else tried to dive under a seat. Screams and frantic shouts erupted at once, yet neither echoed through the bus.
(This is bad...)
Looking for a way out, Eiji reached for the lever on the emergency exit beside him. It had a shallow latch; pushing down should have swung it open.
And yet—the lever wouldn't budge. It wasn't a matter of strength; the door itself seemed to have fused seamlessly with the frame. He tried digging his fingernails into the seam, but the gap had shrunk.
Yuna grabbed Eiji's sleeve tightly.
"Eiji-kun...!"
His childhood friend was staring at him, on the verge of tears. He had always been weak to that look on her face.
"It's going to be fine."
He blurted it out on reflex, though he had nothing to back it up. Still, finding some comfort in the words, the tight grip on his sleeve loosened slightly.
Eiji turned his arm over and took Yuna's hand in his.
Right at that moment—.
The floor fell out from beneath their feet.
"Ah...!?"
Yuna floated into the air. The bag slipping from her lap drifted diagonally upward between the seats.
"Hold on!"
No sooner had he shouted than everything plummeted.
The ceiling buckled, and luggage rained down from the overhead racks. The sound of tearing upholstery tore through the air. A window pane burst into white fragments, scattering into a shower of granules. Screams stretched out as the distinction between floor and ceiling vanished. Someone's shoe grazed Eiji's arm, flying diagonally up through the aisle.
Before he could even think, his body moved.
"Yuna!"
Eiji pulled Yuna's head against his chest, turning his back toward the ceiling to shield her.
An instant later, something heavy and hard slammed into his back.
"—kh!"
The breath was knocked right out of him. A searing streak of pain tore from his shoulder down to his lower back. Feeling Yuna squirm in his arms, Eiji wrapped a hand around the back of her head and held her tightly in place.
They bounced twice. The second jolt was longer, and the bus finally ground to a halt, resting at an awkward tilt.
Once the violent shaking subsided, fine dust drifted through the cabin. The floor was steeply sloped. Down the aisle, someone was coughing, while another person cried out a name. The warped window frames let in blinding white light through the shattered glass.
Eiji spoke softly to his childhood friend in his arms.
"Hey, are you all right?"
"Yeah... I'm okay."
In fact, Yuna was completely unharmed. Even as Eiji checked her arm, shoulder, and the back of her head, she showed no sign of pain, simply letting him examine her.
Two rows ahead, a boy clutching his bag crawled out from between the seats. A shattered light cover had scattered sharp fragments across the aisle. A stray water bottle rolled down the sloping floor toward the front. From somewhere outside the bus came the sharp sound of metal striking stone.
More debris might still fall. Keeping Yuna close, Eiji remained hunched over.
"Yuna. Keep your head down."
Yuna ducked as told. Then, reaching an arm over Eiji's shoulder, her fingers brushed against his back. When she pulled her hand back, she held it up before her face.
"Eiji-kun, you're bleeding...!"
Eiji caught her wrist and gently guided it down. The movement sent a dull, throbbing weight flaring across his back.
(Must've taken a direct hit earlier...)
He rolled his shoulder; his arm went all the way up. Fortunately, the bone didn't seem to be broken.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
Intending to help her up first, Eiji placed a hand on Yuna's elbow. She pushed back against him, stopping him in his tracks.
"Wait. Don't move."
"Huh?"
"I... I think I can heal it. Maybe."
Still on her knees, Yuna shifted around behind Eiji. Her fingertips grazed the torn fabric of his shirt. Beneath it, Eiji could feel the warm, sticky wetness of his own blood.
"What? Heal it? How?"
"I don't know. But I just feel like I can."
At that very moment, Yuna's palms began to glow with a brilliant white light.
The radiance spilled through the gaps between her fingers, illuminating every speck of dust suspended in the air. The moment the light touched him, the burning heat in his back smoothly receded. The tight, stinging pull of torn flesh melted away, leaving behind only the weight of blood-soaked cloth.
(What...?)
Eiji twisted around and reached for his back. The wound was completely closed. Wet, tacky blood came away on the pads of his fingers.
"What did you just...?"
"I don't know. I really don't know..."
With her glowing palms still raised, Yuna was at a loss for words. The light had already faded, leaving her fingertips trembling violently.
"What is happening...? If this is a dream, please let me wake up..."
Despairing words slipped from her parted lips, and tears welled in her eyes.
"Yuna—"
Just as he reached out to pull her trembling shoulders close—
Outside the bus, the heavy clatter of scraping metal echoed.
Beyond the shattered windows stood ranks of armored figures. The bus rested on a vast floor paved with stone, surrounded by towering colonnades whose upper reaches disappeared into shadows near an impossibly high ceiling. Fixtures resembling wall sconces burned with a light that was definitely not fire.
A glowing band crossed beneath the tilted aisle. Etched into the floor beneath the bus was an enormous circle, its intricate lines crisscrossing and its perimeter densely packed with unfamiliar glyphs. Those lines were fading, dimming one by one from the center outward.
"The Heroes have arrived! There are wounded! Someone call the medics, quickly!"
At the armored man's shout, the figures outside the circle sprang into motion. People bearing stretchers rushed forward, and the line of raised spears parted slightly.
Farther back stood figures clad in sweeping, floor-length robes. Positioned at even intervals along the edge of the circle, they held their palms outstretched toward the bus. When one of them finally lowered their hands, the others followed in perfect unison. A chorus of cheers erupted from the rear ranks.
Shards of glass lay thinly scattered across the stone floor, yet not a single boot had stepped upon them. The soldiers halted just shy of the circle's border, none daring to cross inside. Whether they were forbidden to enter or simply too afraid, Eiji couldn't tell.
Heroes—it seemed that was what they were calling someone in this bus.
Up front, Kaito braced himself against the back of a seat and stood up.
"Can you stand? Hold onto me."
Kaito's voice rang out clearly, commanding and calm even in this chaos. A girl sitting on the floor reached up to take his offered arm. Beside them, Miu sat hugging her knees, staring blankly out through the shattered window.
Only Gakuto remained frozen by the driver's seat. He turned around, his face pale with utter shock.
"H-Hey... The driver's gone!"
"The teacher too! Sensei is gone! They vanished!!" another student cried out.
The teacher's seat was equally empty. Gakuto stumbled back a step, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the headrest. Not a single student knew how to answer the commotion outside.
To push himself up, Eiji planted his hand against the emergency door beside him—the one that had been warped and jammed half-open along with its frame.
The moment his hand touched it, the emergency door clicked shut all on its own. The twisted hinges snapped cleanly back into alignment.
(Wait... Wasn't this just completely mangled?)
Eiji pulled his hand back and traced the edge of the door with his fingertips. The metal strike plate had smoothed over, restored to its pristine condition before years of wear. It felt identical to the surface his fingers had traced countless times over the summer.
Stepping out into the aisle, he braced his hand against the backrest of the seat ahead. The loose, dislodged bracket snapped neatly back into place right beneath his fingers. Even when he leaned his full weight on it, the seat didn't budge.
(Why are... broken things fixing themselves?)
In the midst of the panic, Eiji was the only one who noticed.