"Hmm... we could see if Sayaka's reached the hospital yet?" you suggest. "And if Oriko's going after our friends... then we should check on Hitomi and, um, Kyousuke, maybe?"
"The ambulance may not have arrived before I started the timestop," Homura notes.
"Homura's right. It will be... close, either way," Mami says. "But I agree, we should check, just in case."
You shrug. "OK, then. A&E first, Hitomi, Kyousuke, then the rest of the hospital, just in case?"
"Sounds like a plan," Mami says with a smile. "Shall we?" She motions with her hand toward the hospital, in a little 'you first' gesture. You smile back at her and take a long leap off the edge of the building and letting your instincts and a touch of magic guide your fall towards the building with Mami's golden ribbon whipping out behind you like a kite's tail.
Halfway through your descent, though, you realize something.
Your landing is a controlled roll, landing on your shoulder and ending with you in a crouch, ready to spring to your feet again. You refrain from doing so, and simply rise to your feet while waiting for the other two to arrive. When they do, you give them a sheepish look. "Uh. I don't actually know where A&E is...?"
Mami giggles. "Oh, Sabrina. And you were doing so well." Then a similarly sheepish look dawns on her face, and she adds, "Though I don't know, either."
"This way," Homura says. She doesn't roll her eyes, exactly, but you can practically
hear said eye roll in the tone of her voice. You grin at Mami behind Homura's back, and she returns the grin. The shared moment of mirth fades quickly, though, lost in the pressing silence and grim search ahead of you.
You push your senses out as you pass through the hospital grounds, scanning the area, however, you don't detect anything apart from the three of you.
The A&E section of the hospital is unsurprisingly populated. The receiving bay is bustling with activity, nurses rushing to and fro carrying various items. One is mid-slip, small tubes of what are, on closer inspection, burn cream flying out of his arms. A harried looking woman is hurrying out of one of the side doors, pushing ahead of her a trolley filled with various items- bandages, scissors, medication, and so forth.
All of them frozen in time, in an utterly surreal tableau.
... The man who's slipping and dropping the burn cream has a particularly silly looking expression on his face, eyelids drooping and teeth bared. The whole freeze-frame expression issue.
"It's kind of creepy," you note as the three of you weave past the human statues, careful not to get the ribbon caught on anything.
"It is," Mami agrees from behind you.
A few minutes of poking your head through all the triage areas turns out to be rather unfruitful. No Sayaka, or even any one who looks to be in for burn treatment or even smoke inhalation. Then again, Sayaka would be the among the first, if not the first, of the people from the fire to arrive, since you'd gotten her out of the fire with alacrity.
"Maybe we should check on the others?" Mami suggests tentatively, rubbing at her nose. The air in here has that slightly antiseptic smell you associate with hospitals, and you wonder for a brief moment how that works - do you have to keep moving, or all the oxygen near you will be used up? But how about those conversations with Homura, where you
didn't move around?
You put the thought aside, and agree with Mami.
The three of you make your way through the hospital to the long term care wards, and wind your way up to the seventh floor on the stairs, since the elevators obviously aren't working. The three of you cautiously look in on Kyousuke, and find that he's sleeping soundly, with nothing out of the place in his ward room.
The same is true of Hitomi, sleeping peacefully on the tenth floor. There's a little journal beside her bed, you note, but you don't dare to read it.
You sigh. "Nothing wrong here, either."
"If Oriko doesn't want to be found, we'll have a hard time finding her," Homura points out.
"Let's just check the rest of the hospital," you comment. "Just in case."
Mami nods in agreement. "It can't hurt. If she's hiding from us, then the less obvious places would be worth a look."
Exiting the building through the roof, the three of you comb the hospital grounds rapidly, leveraging your massive detection radius to its fullest. You don't find Oriko nearby, however, you
do find a Witch's Barrier nearby, and call it out to the others, before heading over to it.
It's the same geometrical slit in reality as any other entrance to a Barrier you've seen, and cast in the same iron-grey as anything else in the time-stop.
Mami looks worriedly at it. "We'll need to come back to this later, when we have the..." she pauses, and frowns, before finishing, "when we have the
time."
You groan, while Homura's eyes flick upwards to the sky for a moment, and her hands twitch. Unintentional or not, that was just terrible. A thought occurs to you, though, and you voice it out. "If Oriko wanted to hide from me in particular, a Witch's Barrier would be perfect," you say, indicating the Barrier.
"Because the Barrier drowns out a magical girl's presence?" Mami says, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
"Right, all I can sense is that there's a Barrier, not anything inside it," you comment.
"A Witch's Barrier is a dangerous place to hide, though," Mami comments.
"If Kirika has anti magic, then it might not be as dangerous," Homura offers.
You nod at the time traveler. "Yeah, I was thinking that. I doubt she's in
this one in particular, but in general..."
Mami purses her lips. "Something to keep in mind if we don't find her?"
"Yeah," you confirm. "Hey, Homura, what happens with your timestop and Witch Barriers?"
"I'm not entirely sure," the time traveler admits. Her shield bearing arm moves slightly, coming uncertainly to the front of her body. "I've never tried bringing people with me while crossing a Barrier before."
"Hmm." Might pose a problem, and then again, it might not. Either way, it's something for later, you reason. You sigh, and rub at your eyes. "Anyway, let's finish our search of the hospital."
The three of you resume the search. As you approach the starting point, you see a few ambulances moving along the road. You point them out, and veer over to take a look.
... Ambulances, inconsiderate of curious people trying to ogle, don't have convenient back windows for you to peer into. You're forced to try looking in from the
front of the ambulances, peering around the drivers, while very carefully avoiding touching the ambulances and bringing them into the timestop.
Magical girl or not, you
really don't want to get hit by a moving ambulance, even if it
is suitably ironic.
Despite the fact that you're taller than Homura and Mami both, this still proves to be a mildly tricky task, resulting in you hopping up and down to try and get the right angle to look in.
Nevertheless, you eventually spy a familiar shock of blue hair in one of the ambulances, accompanied by her father. Sayaka's mother, with the same shade of blue hair she has, is lying on the gurney strapped down in the back of the ambulance.
They look, if not fine, then in acceptable condition.
"She's in good hands, then," Mami says. At the same time, though, she looks mildly pensive.
Someone's stomach grumbling interrupts her. Your head snaps up, staring first at Mami, and then Homura. "That wasn't me," Mami says.
The two of you stare at Homura.
"What?" the time traveler asks, defensively.
You shake your head, a smirk tugging at your lips. "Nothing."
[] Suggest eating
[] Continue searching
- [] Where?
[] Write-in
=====
Was out and busy most of the day.
Oh, and GM's honour - Oriko
is in a fixed and pre-determined location, and one that's not some random alley somewhere. If you find her, you find her. It's just... well, you haven't.
