>>5818035>>5818043>>5818044>>5818052>>5818256>>5818325>>5818332>>5818523>>5818859>>5818900You attempt to sit up, but your body is so weak and deprived of energy that you feel paralyzed. It was a miracle you could even talk. You can’t even sense your own heartbeat, you just have to assume it’s there because Naoki isn’t freaking about it.
“Sorry. I guess I overdid… it.” You croak.
He shrugs. “It happens.”
“Naoki… Did I fuck up?”
“Yes.” He answers, bluntly. “This is the first time I saw what you operate like under duress. Your first instinct was to handle things yourself, heedless of your condition or limitations. I don’t think you considered yourself as part of a team for a single moment, not until you were at the absolute end of your rope. I saw you run for Mrs. Sato yourself before you finally relented to reason, but only because you hit an absolute wall. And then you still sacrificed yourself to take down the centipede even though our win was a foregone conclusion. It seems self-sacrificial on the surface, but my intuition tells me that it’s more about you being arrogant and maybe even a glory hound. It was completely pointless and if we were in a more dangerous situation you would have died, and not even for a good reason.”
“That’s not… true at all. I summoned you with the signal fire… because I knew I needed you.”
“True, but again, you only did that when you reached an impasse. You likely only thought of us at all when you had absolutely no other choice. You wouldn’t stop until you literally gave it everything you had, despite the fact that me and Masami were completely healthy. You even knocked yourself out at the end as a cherry on top just because you could, even though you really didn’t need to. You wouldn’t have even considered us if you weren’t completely spent. There’s no reason to be like that. It felt insulting. Like you have contempt for us and our abilities.”
“... I’m sorry, but look, I don’t want to talk about this right now, I don’t agree with you but I don’t have the energy to squabble… Can we stop?”
“Yeah. We’ll talk about it later, I’m not trying to pick on you while you’re down.”
