Marionette

Skies, Chapter Twenty Three - Kizuna [絆]

It felt like she was fighting to stay afloat.

There was no other way she could describe it.

There really wasn't much left inside of her that wanted to keep kicking up to the surface.

In truth there really wasn't much left that she found she could do anymore.

Just when it felt like maybe something was starting to get back on track, something worse came a long to shake her world back into disarray.

And unlike how it was usually something she could deal with, something she knew most of the details about, this time she didn't even know what was going on, even in its most simplest form.

She didn't know what was wrong with Yuta, no matter how much she really did try to figure it out - It felt like she'd lost him, and she didn't know how or why.

And now it felt like she was about to lose Reiko, too.

Amaya had no comprehension of how long it had been since she and Reiko ended up hanging from the lip of the stream wall, nor did she have any recollection of how she'd even ended up hanging from the wall like that.

For the first time in what was her conscious memory, the water that soaked up to her waist had no effect on her - She was far too wound up over the events that had just taken place to even notice where she was in connection to water.

By the time someone had managed to track the two of them down, Amaya had already managed to wrestle Reiko onto her back and dragged the both of them up over the stream wall. It felt like a mere couple of seconds later when footsteps caught her attention, though in truth it may have been many, many minutes later.

About the only thing that gave her any indication that it had been a considerable amount of time later was the fact that Reiko had calmed down enough to nod off to sleep.

It was as she heard the footsteps come to a stop just a few feet away that Amaya lifted her gaze from Reiko's slumped form.

She found that Karma had tracked them down, and from the look on his face it was obvious that he did not like what he was seeing.

Though he didn't quite say anything at first.

He'd opened his mouth much like he'd been about to, though from the look she'd cast him, he seemed to decide against it.

Instead, he let out a breath as he crouched down just next to Amaya, his sharp gaze upon Reiko.

'What happened?' He asked, glancing at Amaya from Reiko momentarily.

'Nothing much.' Amaya responded, a rather forced smile across her face as she felt Karma look at her. 'That guy just freaked her out is all.'

A lie, of course, but she didn't want to get into this right now.

Now wasn't a good time when she was having trouble managing her own thoughts, let alone talk about them.

'Heh? I wouldn't have guessed.' Karma responded with an innocent smile, though from the sarcastic tone of his voice he was a little exasperated.

There was a particular bite to his words, after all.

'So?'

'So?' Amaya repeated, turning her head to fix Karma with a confused look. 'So what?'

'Don't bother trying to play dumb - You know exactly what.' He lost all signs of that smile, much to Amaya's distaste.

He was going to force the point ...

Though Amaya merely let out a sigh as she looked back down at Reiko, her hair falling to veil her face from his view.

'I don't know ...'