Nanao Evades Tangerine and Lemon's Pursuit

Nanao Evades Tangerine and Lemon's Pursuit is a sequence of improvised diversions aboard the train, in which Nanao turns ordinary passenger belongings and the layout of the carriages into tools for buying time. His escape is not a single clean break: it depends on slowing Tangerine, exploiting Lemon's distraction, and repeatedly adapting when a plan or expectation fails.

Panic and Improvised Diversions

As the chase presses in, Nanao experiences a brief bodily surge of anxiety: his vision narrows, his pulse quickens, his breathing turns shallow, and his chest tightens. In the space of a few blinks, he lets the rush of thought pass; when it subsides, he feels renewed, and his vision opens up. The passage presents his improvisation as an answer to immediate pressure, not as the execution of a settled escape plan.

In car two, he spots a sleeping, middle-aged passenger with salt-and-pepper hair and a conspicuous fire-engine-red cowboy hat on the adjacent seat. Nanao quietly puts the hat on the sleeping man, hoping the unexpected sight might prompt Tangerine to stop and investigate. He cannot know whether the bait will work; his aim is to make Tangerine spend time noticing and interpreting distractions, since even a delay may improve Nanao's chance of getting away.

Nanao also considers using a battered suitcase covered in stickers, but it is so heavy that he can barely move it and abandons the idea. In car one, he takes a compact umbrella from an overhead luggage rack, opens it with a pop that draws several passengers' attention, and leaves it on a seat two rows farther along. He then stretches vinyl string beneath the seats and across the aisle, fastening it between armrests to make a tripwire. He steps over his own trap cautiously, aware that he might be caught by it himself. The umbrella and string are deliberate clues and obstacles, not a guarantee: Nanao recognizes that these measures alone will not be enough.

Recruiting Passengers as a Decoy

In car two, Nanao recognizes a shopping bag he had seen on the platform in Tokyo. It contains a bright red jacket, a wig, and a dress. He takes the bag while its owners, a cross-dresser reading a tabloid and a bearded man occupied with his phone, sit ahead of him. He considers the wig as a disguise but judges the jacket too conspicuous. When the pair confront him, Nanao abandons his customary polite manner and presses them to follow his instructions, threatening the bearded man to make clear that he is serious.

Nanao turns the wig into part of a more specific ruse. He puts it on the bearded man and directs him to go to the back of car one and call the cross-dresser when someone approaches. Nanao's purpose is to give Tangerine a false person to notice while drawing him toward the far end of the car. The cross-dresser is not given a full explanation; Nanao instead tells her to enter the bathroom and not reveal that he is there. He hides against the wall, positioning himself to surprise Tangerine if he comes in.

The timing depends on the passengers carrying out their parts. Nanao imagines Tangerine stopping at the umbrella and then encountering the tripwire, which might indicate that Nanao went farther into car one. He also bets that Tangerine will consider the occupied bathroom accounted for after seeing the cross-dresser enter, rather than suspecting that two people are inside. The cross-dresser's bag vibrates with an incoming call, which Nanao takes as a sign that the bearded man has followed the instruction to alert her. He then tells her to leave the bathroom and head into car one while he goes in the opposite direction. When she asks about payment, he gives her two 10,000-yen notes. He also hands over the phone he took from Wolf.

Evading Tangerine

After avoiding Tangerine in the gangway between cars one and two, Nanao reaches the entrance to car three. He tries to look through the door window, but trips its sensor; the door slides open and threatens to expose him. Rather than resist what he regards as the flow of his bad luck, he slips inside and sits in an empty first-row seat, keeping out of sight.

Lemon is standing farther up the carriage. Nanao had hoped that Lemon might drink from a bottle containing sleeping powder, but Lemon remains awake, and Nanao admits to himself that this was only one of several hurried traps, not something on which he had relied. Another alarm is still beeping urgently. Nanao waits for Lemon to investigate, and Lemon eventually moves back a row and crouches to search the floor. Nanao seizes that moment, moves up the aisle with controlled haste, and passes Lemon while Lemon is occupied. He holds his breath until he reaches the gangway, then exhales but keeps moving.

The Escape Continues

Nanao proceeds through cars four and five. Once he reaches the gangway beyond car five, he takes out Wolf's phone and searches its contacts for a number he has just entered. He calls and presses the phone to his ear amid the train's noise, leaning against the window as the line begins to ring. The available scene ends before the call's purpose or result is disclosed, leaving this attempted escape in motion rather than presenting it as a completed getaway.

The sequence's defining pattern is adjustment under pressure. The cowboy hat, abandoned heavy suitcase, popping umbrella, low tripwire, borrowed wig, bathroom concealment, sleeping-powder trap, and alarm each create a different possibility, but none secures Nanao's safety by itself. He gains ground by treating delay as valuable, accepting help when he can obtain it, and moving the instant an opponent's attention shifts. The pursuit therefore advances through small, contingent openings rather than a decisive confrontation: Tangerine is evaded, Lemon is passed while distracted, and Nanao continues down the train with Wolf's phone in hand.