"I'm sorry. If I hadn't forced my brother's hand, he wouldn't have let you go. If I knew that lying in front of my brother would make you like this..." The sobbing sound continued. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I want you to know that I..." He gasped. "I have always regarded you as a good friend...maybe my only friend. I'm sorry...Hajime..."
"Hold on, Hajime!" Hajime heard Baishui's voice, but his eyes were too tired, so he closed them again. "Hajime...stay awake…stay with us."
Hajime felt himself shaken suddenly, and opened his eyes again, but his eyes were blurred. He felt like he was in a hazy dream. Hajime raised his head and saw the man's face staring straight ahead. "Yul..." He closed his eyes and fell back into the man's arms.
Baishui shouted, "Hajime…Hajime…"
The sound of the dangerous arrows chasing after the five Tanzanies and the two dragons made Baishui and Jiāo feel as if they were standing on the edge of a waterfall. There was an inexplicable feeling that made their knees weak and their hearts trembling with fear.
When Baishui looked back, he saw a wave of arrows rushing towards him. "Jiāo!"
Jiāo turned around quickly, stood on the saddle, and jumped into the wagon carrying Yul, Abrafo, U-ri and Michio. She used her magical powers to create a solid earthen wall that rose from the ground to the sky and held back incoming arrows.
As soon as the earthen wall was destroyed by the arrows, another wave of arrows flew into the sky and fell on them like raindrops.
Jiāo shouted, "We need to get out of range."
Seeing the dense forest ahead, Baishui charged the horses towards the forest.
Jiāo was about to jump back on the horse but found Abrafo's left leg dangling over the side of the wagon. She quickly magically created another earthen wall, pulled Abrafo on top of Michio, and she jumped back on her horse.
"Do you know where you are going?" Hajime heard Jiāo shout.
"Let's go straight to the forest ahead," Baishui shouted. "This is our only chance of survival." He looked back at the situation on the wagon, and he was relieved to see the four people and some of their belongings were still on the wagon.
In this moment of trance, Hajime felt that he had experienced two different worlds. Part of Hajime felt the wind blowing past him, and the sound of galloping horseshoes echoed in his ears. He heard everything between Baishui and Jiāo, but he couldn't respond for some reason. A more insidious and sharper feeling was the feeling of riding on horseback and the cold wind passing by him, and the other feeling was lighter, a little dull, as if the feeling was already so far away. Faded to the point where it feels unreal, and if he wasn't paying attention, he probably didn't know it was there. He felt himself lying comfortably in the warm bed, and someone was holding his hand, but the feeling was so dull, that any feeling he experienced felt like hair touched the cheek. Many of the beeps he heard were machine beeps and ventilators. He heard so many people talking at the same time, and there were so many voices echoing near and far in his ears, he couldn't tell who was who. When he tried to hear the faintest, farthest sound, he recognized it.
"Please wake up and let's be friends again," came a sobbing voice in the distance. "I'm sorry... Hajime..."
"Keiji…" Hajime heard his own voice echoing in his heart. He tried hard to open his eyes but couldn't. His heart was pounding as he tried to move his lips. He never knew it would be so difficult to move his lips to speak. He felt his lips were held together with extra super glue.
"What are you doing here?" Hajime believed he heard Kenji's voice.
"I'm leaving," Keiji said, walking towards the door.
Hajime exhausted all his strength and slightly opened his eyes. The wavy figures of the two standing at the door were like heat waves on a hot summer day. The taller one must be Kenji, and the shorter one must be Keiji.
Keiji said, "You should go home."
Kenji said, "I will when Hajime wakes up."
Keiji said frantically, "How much longer?"
Kenji said, "I don't know."
Keiji sighed, "I know it's my fault that Hajime became like this. If it wasn't for me, you would never have broken up with Hajime." He cried. "Sorry, I lied."
Kenji said, "Whatever has happened has already happened. You save that apology for Hajime when he wakes up."
Hajime's heart started beating fast, so he asked himself what would happen to his friends who were still sitting at the dinner table at Saja's house if he returned to his universe. He needs to go back and save his friends, but how? He began to hear Baihui's voice fading away, the beeping of the machine beside him became louder and louder, and the voices of the people rushing into the room became clearer and clearer.
"Sir, please leave the room immediately." A nurse rushed in and pushed Kenji and Keiji aside to make room for the two doctors.
"BP dropping… BP Dropping… Seventy-five over fifty," another nurse called.
"Three mg of ephedrine," said one of the doctors.
"Three mg of ephedrine injected," the nurse repeated after she injected the ephedrine into Hajime's IV.
"No pulse," a nurse said. "I don't have a pulse."
"CPR," said one of the doctors, and began to perform CPR. "One…two…three…"
"Go get the crash cart," said another.
"Stop…" Hajime heard himself. "Stop trying to save me. I want to go back to my friends. Please stop...I have to go back to my friends."
"I'm losing him," the doctor called out again. "Crash Cart… I need it right now. Stay with us, buddy. Stay with us…one…two…three…"
"Stop…You are crashing my ribs… I'm hurting… please stop…"
(Three Hour Earlier)
Yul looked at Hajime who was about to faint. Hajime suddenly grabbed his left thigh. Yul asked, "Hajime, are you alright?"
Hajime said, "I think I'm really drunk."
Yul looks and sees that U-ri has passed out on the floor. Yul sees Abrafo and Michio were still a little conscious. "You two, okay?" he asked, feeling his legs start to give way.
Abrafo tried to stand up, but he couldn't. He firmly grasped the edge of the table, trying to prop himself up, but he could only bend his knees and crashed onto the table again.
Saja, who was sitting across from the five people, smiled, and said, "Don't try to resist, your efforts will be in vain."
Yul asked, "Why?"
Saja said, "Because you want to enter Magior City. Over the years, those come and go. From having flesh attached to their bones until they become skeletal remain, everyone of you have only one goal in your heart." He smiled and stared at Yul, holding his knife in the other hand. "You all want the key to No Man's Land."
Yul said, "We didn't force you to take us there."
Saja said, "It's a good thing you didn't force us to take you there, unless you and your men will die a worse death. Don't worry, you won't feel anything. When you wake up again, you will be with everyone else in heaven."
Abrafo frowned angrily, "You! How dare you... We didn't offend you in any way. Why do you want to kill us?" He suddenly fell to the floor and passed out beside Michio.
Saja said, "We are not bad people. If you come as guests with no motive, we will entertain you, but you are going to enter Magior City and I will not allow that to happen. Entering Magior City will cause chaos for us. Don't you know that when you take the key, you will open the gates and let those warriors control us again? We'll do whatever it takes to prevent anyone from taking that city key." He sighed. "Even if it means we have to kill people."
Abrafo frowned, "You psychopath… you're sick." He fell on the table.
Yul tries to reach for his sword, only to find that he left it in the hut. He stretched out his hand to hold Hajime's hand and squeezed Hajime's hand with all his strength. He saw Hajime's hand reaching out to him, and then he couldn't feel anything.
Saja looked at his family and said, "Drag them out."
After soaking in the water to rejuvenate the dry skin, Baishui and Jiāo walked back to the bamboo hut, only to see more than a dozen men grabbing their things and throwing them on the ground.
Jiāo rolled up her sleeves and said frantically, "What the hell are they doing?"
Baishui grabbed her hand and said, "I didn't see the others." He looked around. "You go and see what happened to the other one. I'll get the Book of Life."
Jiāo rushed to Saja's house.
"What about the other two?" one of the men asked.
One of the men said, "I believe they went that way."
"Let's go kill them," said another.
The men looked at each other and headed towards the creek.
Baishui seized the time. He grabs his two bags, straps Yul's sword to his back, grabs U-ri's cross bag and Abrafo's sword. He looked around and saw that the five horses they had tied to the posts were gone. At this time Jiāo rushed back.
Jiāo panted heavily, "Not good. Bad news."
Baishui asked, "What's wrong?"
Jiāo said, "They are all dead."
Baishui was so shocked that he couldn't speak for a while. "Dead? Are you sure they're dead?"
Jiāo said, "I saw them lying on the floor. They look dead."
Without his source of life, Baishui knew that he had no magical power; therefore, he couldn't save them either. "Jiāo, I need a diversion."
Jiāo said, "What kind of diversion are you referring to."
Baishui smiled and jokingly said, "Live bait."