A soothing humming filled the air, and little flecks of sawdust flickered in and out of my view. Some of them tickled my nostrils, and, resisting all my efforts to rub it away, I sneezed.

‘Lucky we're early, eh?’ said Kaede. Her mouth was turned up, but her eyes lacked the crinkles of a true smile.

‘Yes, except…’ said a scowling Daisuke.

Except two paths lay before us, and we didn't know which to take. The one on the right was smooth and gray, flanked on each side by a copse of well trimmed trees. A dusty trail of a thousand wheels painted its surface. The other ran along the bed of a river, sloping into its depths on one side as if to drown those who strayed to the edge. Trees closed it off, their boughs and roots moving in to trip the unwary. Weeds and stones littered what cobblestones remained from decades ago.

‘If I remember correctly, the path on the right is the newer one,' said Daisuke, ‘It certainly looks it.’

‘But isn't that one quicker?’ asked Kaede, pointing at the other one.

Daisuke raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure?’

She rubbed her eyes as if she hadn't slept for days and pushed her bangs away. ‘Yes, our mentor told us it was when Ahio and I came here on a quest with him.’

‘I can check that,' he said and lugged out a giant sepia book from his backpack. A backpack he wore in addition to a side bag. It was a wonder he didn't develop any spine problems. The frayed letters of the book spelt Living by River Inu-- A Comprehensive Text on the Villages by the Longest River.

‘Three eighty-four, three eighty-four,' Daisuke murmured as he turned the pages. The rhythmic shuffling of paper reminded me of the seconds ticking by. Seconds in which Ahio continued to be in danger. Now I knew what the delay was.

While Daisuke searched and Kaede helped, I stepped closer to the wooden gate. A river was behind Ahio when he fought, and unless it crossed over to the other path along the way, the correct road had to be the one on my left. Now, how to tell them without giving myself away?

‘Yes, the left path is quicker,' said Daisuke. ‘It takes forty-four hours to travel from Shoubaiba to Chisaiki Son, while the other takes forty-seven.’ He flipped to the page and placed a small finger on it’s aged text. ‘However it says here that nobody uses this path nowadays. Even though it's shorter, it's very slippery and dishevelled because of the river along its length.’

Aha. So the river didn't change paths.

Kaede narrowed her eyes and stayed silent, staring at nothing in particular. I crossed two fingers behind my back, my mind racing for a contingency plan. Please choose the left path, please choose the left path.  

She glanced at me and Daisuke, her auburn hair shining pink in the sunlight. ‘So we're going to take the path on the right. Now that that's clear, we should think about how to free Ahio.’

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Dammit.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward. The tips of my fingers prickled, and cold sweat ran down my palms. It was the wrong time for self-consciousness, but there it was. ‘I, um, I think we should take the other path.’

‘Why?’ asked Kaede. ‘Daisuke says no one really uses it. We'll waste a lot of time if we take that path.’   

Time for the contingency plan. I could do this.

‘No one uses it much, but it's not closed off. People can use it if they want to. So the kidnapper might've taken that path,' I ran over my calculations again. ‘At any rate, the left path saves three hours of a traveller’s time. So, if the kidnapper used that path, he'd only be an hour away from here. But if he'd chosen the other path, he'd be four hours away. We can check both paths for the kidnapper if we start with the left one.’

Daisuke's eyes widened and his peach lips parted. ‘Oh.’

Kaede's brows knitted tight enough to form a unibrow. She shifted her gaze from me to Daisuke. ‘I don't get it.’

Sighing, I crouched and took the sawdust ridden sand as my blackboard. I hoped it wouldn't be like the countless times I'd spent explaining maths to my classmates, all the while banging my head on a metaphorical wall and trying to hide it.  

I drew two lines on the sand, one four times longer than the other. Then I divided the bigger line into four, each division the same size as the other line.

‘If we search the left path, we should encounter Ahio within an hour. Assuming the kidnapper didn't take this path, we'll have to double back. So we'll lose two hours of our lead maximum. But that means the kidnapper, if he was on the other path, would still be two hours away from here,' To illustrate the point, I swept off two units from the longer line and the shorter line all the way. ‘So I think we should take the left path first.’

Kaede's brows were still knitted, but soon, they leapt back to their place high above her eyes. I let out a breath I didn't know I’d held. She grinned, her chin appearing pointier than it was.  

‘I get it now. You're right, we'll take the left path. Well done.’

Daisuke gave me a nod and a small smile. My cheeks burned, and I shook my head to get rid of it.

‘So here's what I've been thinking,' Kaede said and crouched next to me to draw on the ground. We spent the next few minutes discussing battle strategy. It was amazing how well people could plan whilst not knowing, or pretending not to know, the details.

Soon, a small pitter-patter came from our right and grew louder. It was Tsubasa, his glasses askew and black hair frizzy in his ponytail. Tayo yawned and stretched on Tsubasa's shoulder, clearly bored by all this.

‘Alright, then,' said Kaede, who stood and swatted the back of her clothes. ‘Now that everyone's here, let's move. We'll strategize more along the way.’

***

It was almost an hour since we’d left.

The air around me seemed solid and with an intent to push me back for every step I took. It was hard to focus on the nervous chatter beside me when the sloshing river and my own paranoid thoughts kept distracting me. I jerked at every rustle, expecting to see the kidnapper behind a leaf or a tendril. It couldn't be long now before--

A shriek came from behind a curve of the path and raked my eardrums. My stomach swung low, and my mouth was dry like cotton. Everyone's footsteps faded away, and even the birds paused their song. Tinnitus rang in the air.

I clenched my teeth and let out the breath I had. Kaede turned to us, her face stiff like it were carved of stone.

This was it. Just remember the plan. Just remember the plan.