Burning Bright

The Fourth Tower

"What's this! Why are there so many bones!?" Akira asked.

"Th-This is..." Rion said, trembling as she took a step back. A bone cracked under her foot. "Kyaa!"

"Be careful, Rion," Akira said. "These bones are pretty brash."

"They're completely weathered... Seems that they are pretty old," Mariya said, examining some.

"... Damn. More corpses...!" Akira said.

"Sengoku?" Mariya said.

"I mean, think about it... There was a corpse at the 'lighthouse'. The 'pyramid' had a couple of mummies, too... And here we got all these bones!" Akira said grimly. "Wherever we go on this island, we find death... Basically this is a 'tower of death'. Pretty fitting for the rest of the island...!"

"Tower... of death..." the president said. He and a number of the others were disturbed by that.

"Wh-What now, Sengoku... Are we pulling back...?" Miyauchi asked.

"Pulling back? Don't be stupid..." Akira said. "We came so far. We have to go inside now."

"Th-Then..." Miyauchi said.

"Yeah. I'll go," Akira said seriously.

"... Then we'll conduct an investigation of the last tower now," Mariya said. "But we can't have everyone go in there. We can't rule out the worst case after all. Okay. We'll split into three groups... Group one investigates the inside of the tower. Group two investigates the outside of the tower. Group three stays on standby here and stays ready to aid group one. That means the plan for building boats is put off for now. The problem is who to send inside, the most dangerous job... It's quite spacious, so I would like about ten people to search... Our idiot Sengoku will go even if we try to stop him, and I'll go too, since I set up the teams. Well, I've got a bond of friendship with him after all."

"Bond of friendship...?" Rion said.

"Doesn't that apply to us, too...?" Oomori said. They both stepped forward.

"We, too, were with you from the beginning," Rion said.

"You two aren't being fair, just keeping it between boys...!" Oomori said.

"Rion... Oomori-san!" Akira said.

"... I forgot. You do have a point," Mariya said.

"That's so like him," Rion said with a smile and she and Oomori giggled a little bit.

"Yeah," Oomori agreed.

"What's with you!!" Mariya said, blushing.

"I'm going, too!" Miyauchi said, making sure her hair was tied up tight. "..." 'I'll do what you couldn't do... Okay, Zaji...!'

"I'm coming, too," Tokiwa said. "Just waiting is boring."

"... Okay, me too," Morita said, holding his camera. "Looks like this here will get some time to shine!"

"I'm coming along, too," the vice president said.

"Eh!? You!? Why..." Takahashi asked.

'I feel like we have overlooked... something underneath the pyramid,' the vice president thought. 'I might get to know what when I investigate this tower—'

"Okay. Looks like I have to go, too!" Yuki said. 'At this rate I'll just be no-good for sure. I have to save Kouhei. I'm sure there's a way to save everyone. For that, I'll do anything...'

"I'm going too!" the president said. "..." He watched Yuki's back. 'Sakuma-kun, should something happen to you, I'll definitely—'

"Well, we're going, too!" Rei said, hooking arms with Tooru.