The Catastrophe was slowly gaining speed with Yo operating the engine control.
"Shit, max speed is currently around 11 knots."
"That's rather slow," Magi muttered, gripping the helm tightly.
With a single look at the Major, he knew what was about to happen, and he had to be prepared for it. He had no clue what speeds they will reach with his help, but it definitely won't be easy to properly control the ship then.
"Momiji!"
"Understood."
She reappeared on the ship's upper deck moments later, teleporting to different points around the vessel to spot any recognizable landmarks that might guide them back toward Japan.
"Nothing yet, huh?" she mumbled as she teleported back to the bridge.
"The coast is clear, and just keep following the current course. I haven't been able to spot anything that would be of help."
She stated, and a moment later she was gone once again.
"Major."
Was all Magi had to say, and Hyoubu knew immediately what he had to do.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to relax his body as much as possible and carefully propelled the ship forward with his abilities.
Cough! Cough!
The moment he started using his abilities, he felt a sharp pain shoot through his chest. This much is nothing.
But he just kept going, slowly increasing the ship's speed.
"We're approaching top speed; this is enough, Major!" Yo shouted, seeing that they had finally reached 20 knots.
And with this they could also try to keep the load on Hyoubu as light as possible; even if he could accelerate the Catastrophe any further, it would become basically impossible to do any last-minute maneuvers for Magi.
"Just hold on for a while, Major; we will get you help as soon as possible," Magi exclaimed, as all his nerves were on edge.
It pained him that he had to rely on Hyoubu at this moment, but it was the only option currently.
Momiji, on the other hand, kept teleporting as far from the Catastrophe as possible in all directions to try and find anything useful so they could take the shortest possible route.
"There's nothing useful here, dammit," she grumbled.
Currently she could only utilize the sun's position and knew the rough direction Japan was in. But it would be much better if she could spot anything that could confirm her rough guess.
She stood on top of the Catastrophe looking in all directions, and sometimes she also stole a peek at Senzo and the others, but nothing much had changed there since their departure.
Senzo was still lying on Sophie's lap unconscious, and the same was true for Andy and Yugiri, both of them lying completely still on the deck.
"How dare they!"
But right now she had to stay focused on the objective, and that was reaching Japan as soon as possible.
***
Just like that, a couple of hours passed with the three of them working tirelessly, navigating the treacherous sea.
Most of it went rather smoothly, but they did have their moments where it almost went completely wrong.
Magi had been so focused while steering the ship that he had almost missed Momiji's instructions to avoid the obstacles at 3 o'clock.
But luckily Yo had used his ability to control sound, and they had just barely evaded it all.
"I'm sorry, Major."
Magi was apologizing profusely because of his mistake; Hyoubu had to step in and expend a lot of extra power that totally wouldn't have been necessary if he had just heard Momiji.
"I-it's fine, Magi, just learn from your mistakes," Hyoubu said weakly, as he tried his best to stay conscious and control the ship's speed to the best of his abilities.
Magi could only nod and grasp the helm so tightly that his hands almost turned fully white.
Calm down; right now is not the time to drown in guilt. I need to keep my head cool.
Then Momiji appeared next to him once more. "Magi, I see land, which I assume is Japan!" she exclaimed excitedly, a massive smile on her face.
"Actually!?"
When Magi heard that, he let out a sigh of relief; it looked like they were almost there.
"Yo, you heard her, right? Try to push the ship forth as hard as you can, and if you're confident, you can even overload the system if you're sure we can reach close enough to the shore."
Magi swiftly composed himself and started giving out his orders; this was the final push, and no mistakes could be made!
"Understood!"
"Major, please take it easy and let the engine do the work; we're almost there."
"Okay."
Was all, Hyoubu could reply, as his consciousness was slowly slipping away; these hours of constantly controlling the ship's speed and propelling it forward had taken their toll on his already failing body.
"..."
Magi could only grit his teeth after hearing the Major's barely audible response, and the same went for Yo as he tried to get as much speed as humanly possible out of the half-working engines.
Momiji, on the other hand, was teleporting around like a madwoman, trying to confirm where they would arrive, as she had her fingers crossed it would be close by where Babel had their best hospitals.
"It's quite hard to properly confirm anything from here, but if I teleport all the way there, I don't know how long that would take, and I don't know if I could get back on time to properly guide Magi."
She was currently standing atop the Catastrophe once more, contemplating what the best course of action would be, but she couldn't really come to a decision on her own.
"I'll ask them."
After saying that, she reappeared inside the bridge once more as she quickly explained her current predicament to Magi, Yo, and the Major.
"So what do you all think I should do?"
"Do not go right now. If the ship crashes, we rushed here for nothing," Magi stated.
"I agree with Magi on this one. We need your scouting abilities; otherwise, we'll have to slow the ship down tremendously, and that could be disastrous."
After hearing both of their opinions, Momiji just nodded with a somber expression, but they had a point; if she just straight up left to check where they would be arriving, they would have to slow down.
"Understood, let's get there safely and as fast as possible!"
Magi and Yo just gave her a nod with an exhausted smile on their faces.