Thousand Man Pin [Made in Abyss Fanfiction]

Chapter 4

Morning came and Nimi overslept. Nat must of been sent to get her because he shook Nimi awake, none too gently.

"What the crap Nimi? Why did you tell Leader I used the special bathroom? He chewed me out. I have dish duty for a month!"

"Sorry," Nimi murmured. It wasn't even dawn yet. She rolled over. "Just five more minutes."

"You owe me! Why were you sneaking around at night anyways?" Nat shook her harder. "Were you trying to steal something else from the office? That's greedy."

"No, I wasn't," said Nimi. She pulled the blankets over her head. "Five more minutes."

"Can't. We all need to report to the classroom right now."

The classroom? Usually they had breakfast first.

"A guildsmember is here and wants to talk to us."

Nimi shot out of bed. "What? Did he have muddy-green robes and a big hooked nose?"

"Yeah... wait is it... what's his name?"

"Ponhan." Nimi jumped out of bed and frantically searched through her blankets until she found the pin. "There it is."

"Why is the pin here?" asked Nat. "I thought we decided to hide it in our hideout?"

"It's my hideout," said Nimi. "And I wanted to take the pin with me."

"Why?"

She didn't want to answer, and she had more pressing worries. "I'll tell you later. Just help me hide this. If Ponhan is back that means he and Meleka must think that one of the orphanage children took the pin. And that means..."

She didn't know what it meant, but she did know it would be a bad idea to take the pin right to them.

"Under the pillow," said Nat. "Nobody will find it there."

"No way, that's the first place I would look," said Nimi.

"Do you think they will really search our rooms?"

Would they? She thought of Leader up late with the crossbow. Was it for the robber, or for Meleka and Ponhan? Either way, them searching the orphanage during the day didn't seem too far fetched.

"Here, help me move the mattress," said Nimi. She pulled the top part away from the wall, then fetched the small knife she kept with her cave raiding equipment.

"What are you doing?"

"We're going to hide it in the mattress," said Nimi. "Everybody will think to check there. But I already hid loads of stuff in it. But that will be the decoy. We'll make a really really really small cut here next to the seam on the bottom and stuff it super deeply in. Nobody will find it."

She slit the fabric open and stuffed the pin in, then pushed the mattress back so the slit hid flush against the wall. The entire time Nat stood staring and useless.

"Our hideout would of been a better place to hide it. You should've listened to us."

"Well, it's too late for that now. And it's my hideout." Nimi set the knife on her nightstand. She threw on her caveraiding jacket to keep warm. It made a funny combination, the jacket with her pajamas. But there was no time to worry about fashion. "Let's go before we get in trouble."

In the classroom they found everybody already seated. The older children filled the wall of desks. Kiyui sat on the floor among the younger children and waved at them. Everyone, like Nimi and Nat, still wore their pajamas. As they entered the Director shot them a dirty look. "Take your seats you two. Now that we're all finally here let's begin."