Half an hour had passed since the first batch of injured had been brought in.
The real trouble was only just beginning.
It was not that the patients’ conditions had worsened, but that unrelated people had come flocking like vultures scenting blood.
Outside the emergency center’s main entrance, red and blue police lights dyed the snow a glaring crimson.
Several police cars were parked haphazardly, blocking half of the originally spacious emergency access route.
Uniformed police shouted as they tried to maintain order, roaring into their radios while attempting to make out dispatch orders amid the din.
Even more annoying than the police were the reporters.
Although it was already late at night, the Gunma branch reporters of every major newspaper and television station had swarmed over at the slightest hint of movement.
The entrance to the emergency center was packed so tightly that not even water could seep through.
Several interview vans marked “Gunma TV” and “Jomo Shimbun” had even illegally parked in the ambulance-only lane.
“May we ask about the casualty situation?”
“I heard it was caused by ice on the road. Does that mean the municipal snow removal work was inadequate?”
“Is there any inside story related to Councilor Okawara?”
Camera flashes kept snapping nonstop. Reporters held microphones and cameras as they desperately squeezed toward the police line, trying to capture the miserable state of the injured so they could make tomorrow’s front-page headline.
And in the corner of the lobby, there were also several family members who had rushed over after hearing the news.
Some were collapsed on the floor wailing. Some grabbed nurses by the collar and loudly demanded to know why they were not allowed in to see them. Others were making calls to borrow money or notify relatives.
Chaos.
Complete chaos.
This chaos severely disrupted the normal medical order.
The already limited emergency staff had no choice but to spare some people to act as security, stopping the reporters and family members who were trying to rush into the resuscitation room.
“Move! All of you, move!”
The emergency center’s head nurse, Nagai Masako, stood before the triage desk with a radio in hand, the veins on her forehead bulging.
She had just pushed a patient with massive abdominal bleeding into the operating room and handed him over to the Second Surgery doctor who had arrived. The moment she turned back, she saw this scene.
What a bunch of bastards.
The people inside were risking everything to save lives, while the people outside were doing everything they could to make trouble.
If this were an ordinary day, she might have cared a little about the hospital’s image. But right now, Nagai Masako only wanted to slaughter every single one of these bastards blocking the way.
“Security! Security!”
“Clear the passage! The next batch of ambulances is about to arrive!”
“Anyone who dares block the way, charge them with obstruction of official duties!”
Under Nagai Masako’s furious roar, several sweating security guards finally steeled themselves and formed a human wall, barely forcing a path through the crowd.
At that moment, the various entrances of the hospital also began to grow lively.
Doctors who had received the all-hands assembly code and phone notifications were returning one after another.
Under the strict hierarchy of the White Tower, as long as they were still breathing, even if they had to crawl, they had to crawl back to the medical department.
“Move! I’m a doctor!”
When senior resident Minamura Shoji rushed into the emergency lobby, his tie was crooked, one button on his shirt was fastened wrong, and on his feet he was even wearing a pair of patent leather shoes that would never in his life be allowed into an operating room.
The all-hands assembly code on a doctor’s pager was no different from a death warrant.
“Doctor Minamura! This way!”
Junior resident Ichikawa Akio hurriedly waved to him.
“I’m here.”
Minamura Shoji entered the changing room, yanked off his suit jacket, grabbed a white coat hanging on the wall, and pulled it on.
There were several other doctors from First Surgery and Second Surgery inside.
Some had messy hair and bleary eyes.
Some were even wearing golf shirts, clearly having rushed back from some nightspot or an indoor driving range.
In the medical department, the consequences of ignoring orders were often more severe than making a surgical mistake.
It was a betrayal of the organization, a challenge to the professor’s authority.
Once someone was deemed a deserter, their career was basically declared over. The best possible outcome would be being exiled to some remote mountain village inhabited only by monkeys and wild boars to work as a village doctor.
So no one dared not come.
Even though Minamura Shoji had just been in a karaoke bar with his arm around a hostess, singing “Kanpai,” and even though his head was still buzzing now, he had still come.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I just ordered a bottle of Louis XIII! I didn’t even get to take one sip!”
“Why was there suddenly an all-hands assembly?”
Several senior doctors in the changing room still had no idea what was happening, but none of them dared be even half a beat slow in their movements.
Ichikawa Akio busied himself among them.
Seeing these seniors, who had just been enjoying their nightlife, now forced to rush back in such a sorry state to work overtime, he felt a burst of schadenfreude.
Although it was a little immoral.
He also knew that in the face of such a major casualty incident, they ought to unite and overcome the crisis together.
But he still could not help feeling secretly delighted.
On ordinary days, these seniors always threw every odd job, every tiring job, every job no one wanted to do, onto the junior residents.
Tonight had been the same.
While he had been in the duty room gnawing on a rice ball and staring blankly at a medical textbook, they had been eating kaiseki cuisine at Matsunoya, drinking daiginjo, and singing karaoke with geisha in their arms.
With such a contrast, it was hard not to feel even the slightest bit of resentment.
But now...
Heehee.
That high-class cuisine they had just eaten must be stuck in their throats now, right?
The sake and beer they had just drunk must be churning their stomachs upside down now, right?
Heehee.
...
On the north side of the hospital, at the remote entrance usually used to transport medical waste and corpses.
Tires crushed over the accumulated snow.
It was a red-and-white Honda CB400, its body a little old.
On roads after a heavy snow, a motorcycle could pass through narrow alleys that cars could not enter. With more route options, it had actually reached the destination faster.
Imagawa Ori, who was sitting on the back seat, took off her helmet.
Her face was a little red. It was hard to tell whether it was from the wind, or because she had just had no choice but to cling tightly to Kiryu Kazusuke’s waist on the back of the motorcycle.
“What is it?”
She glanced around. This place was still some distance from the emergency center’s main entrance.
Kiryu Kazusuke turned back and looked into her large eyes.
“Senpai, it is now twelve-thirty in the morning.”
“If someone sees you sitting on the back of my motorcycle, it will damage my reputation.”
“So please get off.”
As he spoke, he planted both feet on the ground and shook the bike.
“Huh?”
Imagawa Ori roughly swept back the short hair the helmet had messed up.
Damage to his reputation?
She was clearly the ace of First Surgery, sitting on the back of a broken motorcycle belonging to a junior resident who had only been hired half a year ago, hugging his waist tightly like some delinquent girl on a night of raging snow.
If anyone saw them, then if anyone’s reputation was going to be damaged, it would be hers, wouldn’t it?
“Fine, I’ll get off.”
She snorted coldly, swung one long leg over, and got off the bike.
Her high heel stepped onto the accumulated snow.
She shoved the helmet back into Kiryu Kazusuke’s arms and straightened the collar of her windbreaker, which had been tousled by the wind.
“Remember this.”
“About what happened tonight, no matter which part of it, if you dare leak even half a word...”
“You’re dead.”
“Hmph!”
As she spoke, she placed her hand horizontally in front of her snow-white neck and made a throat-slitting gesture.