In the midst of their fall, he covered her head, trying to keep her from hitting her head at least.
And then, just as he felt as though his body was floating in the air, their bodies hit the ground with a resounding thud right after, rolled a little more before finally crashing into the root of a large tree.
「Kyaaa!」
「Gah! Tss…」
Now that the fall was over, Yuu took a breath.
Frowning at the pain in various parts of his body, he looked at Kazumi, whom he was holding in his arms.
She was shutting her eyes still.
「Aki-san… Aki-san! Are you okay?」
「Auu, err… Ooh!, Hi-hi-hi, Hirose-kun!」
Due to how surprised she was to find Yuu's face so close to hers, Kazumi's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.
However, she then realized that they were both in a terrible state, covered in leaves and dirt.
Separating himself from Kazumi for once, Yuu looked at his own body.
He was relieved to see that his limbs were not immovable or bleeding.
Since he had hit himself on various parts of his body, he certainly had a number of scratches and was in pain, though.
「Those guys might be coming after us. Can you stand up?」
「Ah, yes. I, I'm fine.」
It occurred when they stood up.
「Whoa, whoa, whoaaaaaaaa!
*Swooooosh* As soon as they heard the sound of something sliding over, someone suddenly jumped out from the 2-meter-high step in front of them.
Then they landed on their buttocks right in front of Yuu and Kazumi and slid down in their direction as they were.
「Huh?!」
Yuu, who had an idea of who that someone was, waited in a stooping position and caught her body firmly in his arms.
「Kyan!」
「Oops! Hiyama-san, did you by some chance come after us?」
「E, ehehe.」
「Doing something so reckless.」
「I, I mean, Hirose-kun, I told you I would never leave your side today, no matter what, didn't I?!」
「I see… Yes, thank you. For coming for me.」
「Ufufu. You're welcome!」
「I don't think this is the time for such a thing, though.」
Turning a blind eye to her own mishaps from earlier, Kazumi warned Youko who was grinning as she got hugged by Yuu.
「You're right! Those guys are chasing us from behind, so we have to get out of here quickly!」
「Wait a sec.」
Yuu got a glimpse of it as he stood up earlier, but it seemed that if they continued down as they were, they would find a stream, and crossing it would take them to the highway.
The footing looked bad, so if they were not careful, they would probably end up getting themselves surrounded.
If anything, he was curious about the thing that got into his field of vision when he caught Youko in his arms earlier.
「What do you say about hiding over there?」
It looked like a gaping hole in the slope.
He had seen small pipes for drainage popping on mountain slopes, but the one in front of them was much thicker, more than one meter in diameter. It was thick enough for a person to enter if he or she bent down.
In terms of image, it was like a slightly protruding clay pipe placed in a vacant lot in an anime featuring a cat-shaped robot.
They could hear the voices and noises of several women from above, so Yuu and the others hurried.
Fallen leaves were only natural, but there were many broken branches around it as well.
Moreover, a reasonably sized sign that read 『Wildfire Beware! 』 was lying on the ground near it.
After leaning the sign against the entrance, Yuu entered through the gap first, while the two camouflaged it with fallen, broken branches and leaves from outside.
When the two came in, they closed the gap with branches and fallen leaves that seemed to have gotten inside.
It was exactly at that moment. When they could hear voices from just above them.
「Where the hell did they run off to? They're not here.」
「Just a while ago, a woman went down, or rather, fell down, right?」
「Shit. Find them! We have to track them down, no matter what it takes!」
It seemed that they had come down to the area around the tree into which Yuu and the others had bumped earlier.
Turned out they were just barely in time.
「Let's go deeper.」
The interior was made of concrete, but perhaps due to the soil and fallen leaves that had accumulated underneath, it felt as though it had a damp smell and the air was stale.
Perhaps because of the continuous sunny weather, it was fortunate that there was no water flowing or pooling.
The pipe wasn't tall enough for them to stand in it, so they proceeded to the deeper side in the posture of bending their upper bodies forward.
There was a little sunlight shining through a gap near the entrance, but they were soon enveloped in darkness.
So this is what they call pitch black darkness, in which you wouldn't be able to tell even if you get your nose pinched.
Inside, it was a slight upward slope.
Holding onto the hem of the person in front of them, they went in the order of Youko, Yuu, and Kazumi.
「It looks like we can only go so far.」
In less than ten meters after they started going deeper, they ended up stopping on their tracks.
According to Youko, who had groped around to check it out, it seemed that beyond that point the pipe branched into three, which were so narrow that it would be difficult for a person to get into them.
「In that case, let's sit down here and wait this all out, shall we?」
「Yes. Now that we've come this far, I guess all we can do is pray that they won't find us.」
「…..」
Even as they tried to put their buttocks on the ground, it was cold.
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