3_Meter_Class

A Horse with No Name ( Melaleuca + 3_Meter_Class )

Mami pursed her lips when Kamina broke down, then moved a little closer. It was rare to see him in this state, especially when he wasn't trying to hide it, but it was always unsettling to her. She reached up and touched his cheek, then wrapped her arms around his neck.

“It’s okay,” she breathed, searching for something to say that would make him feel better. “Sometimes tragedies happen, and there’s nothing you can really do to change that. But…I’m sure if you keep those people in your thoughts, then they’ll keep living, in a way. Just keep in mind that it wasn’t your fault, and cherish every day that you have.” Yes, that was pretty much the exact speech that her parents gave her when, years ago, she found her pet rabbit torn apart by a hawk, but she wasn’t really sure what else to say. Besides, this was pretty much the same situation, or at least it seemed to leave Kamina in the same state of mind.

“Now…let’s move on, shall we?” Mami offered him a smile. “Physically, I mean. We need to find somewhere to ride the rest of this storm out. Somewhere sturdy, on higher ground…”

A Horse with No Name ( Melaleuca + 3_Meter_Class )

Mami felt her breath hitch when Kamina’s hand touched hers, and grinned as he started to help free his belt from the fender’s clutches. When he asked if she was alive, she even managed to laugh a little(“well of course I am”). Her prayers were answered; he wasn’t dead! As she dragged him away from the offending strip of metal, she was so elated and relieved that she felt like lifting him up and twirling him around.

And then he made that stupid joke.

Mami rolled her eyes at the crass remark, her cheeks going scarlet now. Even a near-death experience couldn’t stop his mouth, it looked like. As irritating as it was, though, she was pleased to at least be able to hear his voice right now. The crudest joke he could make was better than a death rattle.

“Please,” she huffed. “Just make sure that they don’t float away.” She grunted a bit as she adjusted him in her arms, as he was beginning to slip. With all of his weight resting on her two hands, he was heavier than she realized, and since she wasn't sure how much magic she had left, she'd stopped using it, rendering her arms as feeble as before. “C-Can you stand up at all?”

A Horse with No Name ( Melaleuca + 3_Meter_Class )

For what seemed like an eternity, Mami inched closer and closer to the red light district. Her throat was raw from panting, and her legs felt like rubber. She wanted nothing more right now but to sit down and take a rest, to lay down and let the rapids carry her for a while. But she couldn’t; what she was wading through wasn’t some lazy river in the sun. If she stopped moving, it would swallow her whole. And, she couldn’t just give up before finding Kamina. Not after she’d come all this way. When she heard someone cry out over the sounds of the storm, she grabbed onto a streetlamp, her eyes widening. That sure sounded like Kamina. She began to wonder if maybe her ears were playing tricks on her, but it sounded just like him! And, just as she figured, it was coming from the direction of the pleasure district. Great. At least it sounded like a cry of pain and not one of…a different nature. She counted to three, then propelled herself forward.

Mami found herself groaning with effort by the time she approached the entrance, or at least where she swore the entrance was last night. Now, it was impassable, completely blocked by a pile of cars. Perhaps the patrons were in too much of a rush to leave. They looked pretty sturdy, she reasoned. Climbing over them would be possible, if she was very careful. She made her way closer and studied the pile, looking for a way to climb up. And then, her eyes met with another’s. However, the other’s eyes were glassed over, unblinking. Lifeless. Suddenly, Mami gasped and stumbled back. A scream rose up inside of her, but it wouldn’t come out for some reason, but it didn’t matter. She’d tripped over something underwater and fell backwards, and she was taken under the waves pretty quickly.
Her arms and legs flailed as she tried to right herself, her eyes agape with fear. She glanced around for something to grab onto, anything, and then she saw something all too familiar. Tattoos…there was a tattooed arm floating nearby. Bubbles sprang from her mouth as she called Kamina’s name, and when she was pushed back above the water, she frantically swam towards him, with so much magic pulsing through her arms and her legs that it was starting to hurt her. Bittersweet tears rose to her eyes as she peered down at him; his belt seemed to be caught on a car fender, which was caught on something else. But was he alive? There was only one way to find out.

She held her breath and reached down, thoughtlessly trying to pull him up and failing. She kicked herself; oh right, his belt! Mami struggled for a bit, trying to hold him above the water and unhook him at the same time, but her fingers were still shaking and the water was too strong. She had to do something else, something more drastic. Mami squeezed her eyes shut, her face heating up as she just pulled and pulled at him, the hold on his waist gradually getting looser. Pants or no pants, she promised, he was going to come out of this alive.

A Horse with No Name ( Melaleuca + 3_Meter_Class )

Wading through ever-rising floodwaters, Mami excused herself as she walked against the flow of panicking townspeople, her shoes in her hands. Normally, she wouldn't be caught dead in weather like this, but Kamina was still at large, and the bus driver had lost her patience with her and kicked her off, so she didn't have much of a choice. It wasn't the flooding and rain that bothered her; she remembered her hometown having similar storms from time to time. It was the floodwater that made her wrinkle her nose in disgust, the murky sludge that was probably teeming with germs and filth, the water that was staining her clothes beyond repair. If she ever found Kamina after all this, she thought, he'd better not give her any trouble for the rest of the day. The week, even.

Her legs growing sore from walking, Mami half-jumped, half-floated over to a wire fence, holding onto it with slippery fingers as she tried to collect her thoughts. The storm would only get worse from here and she didn't have time to waste by poking around place after place and hoping that Kamina would be there. Perhaps she was looking in the wrong areas, she figured. She'd found him in the red light district last night, didn't she? So perhaps he was still there, in some sort of drunken stupor, not even realizing what was happening around him. Her grip on the fence tightened as frustration bubbled up inside of her, suddenly remembering how angry, and hurt, and frankly, embarrassed she was that night. Just days ago he was kissing her and saying tender things, and she believed them to be true, at least until she found him in the middle of the night, stumbling around the pleasure district after she searched for hours, completely out of his mind and showing her that he'd rather be with whores than with her. Her clenched jaw began to tremble; this situation wasn't much different from the ones in her books. He was the wayward husband out living it up and she was his pitiful, homebody wife that knew all about it but simply looked the other way. Or perhaps, she was the wife that knew all about it and then poisoned him in his sleep and fled the country. With the way she was feeling, that one seemed much more accurate.

For a moment, she wanted to turn around and get back on that bus and never look back on this place, but she couldn't just leave him to die. It wouldn't sit well with her conscience, and she knew that he'd be out in this storm as well if she was the one that was missing(of course, she wouldn't ever go missing for the reasons he did, but that's beside the point). And, perhaps she was reaching, but when he was pouring his heart out to her that night, she’d never seen him look at anything the way he looked at her. She wanted to believe that it came from an honest place, that he did care for her, but simply didn't know how to show it properly. It probably wasn’t a huge stretch of the truth, she reasoned. They did come from different worlds, after all. Perhaps all she had to do was guide him in the right direction, and then everything would be perfect. With newfound hope, Mami let go of the fence to go searching once more, only to be nearly swept under by the flood’s current, the force knocking her shoes out of her hands and sending them floating along. She mourned them only with a curse under her breath, then turned around. She could get new shoes later. After regaining her footing, she began to walk towards the red light district, taking wide, deliberate steps and forcing magic to her legs, making them strong enough to fight the flow of the water. Hopefully she’d be able to get to him in time.

A Horse with No Name ( Melaleuca + 3_Meter_Class )

"Please, I have to get off!" Mami cried out from the middle of the crowded bus that she had been dragged on moments ago.

"Miss," the driver didn't bother looking back this time, her voice prickled with exasperation. "For the last time. Going out there is suicide, and the time I'd spend pulling over to let you off is time we can all spend escaping." The middle-aged woman let out a huff as Mami began to protest, deciding to cut her off before the girl repeated herself yet again. "We're all going to the same place. Whoever you're looking for, you'll meet them again later."

Mami ran her hands through her hair, her face paling. 'You'll meet them later'. As if that was supposed to calm her down. How was she supposed to know that she'd meet Kamina later? What if he had evacuated to a different place? What if he'd been trampled in the crowds, or killed by the looters that decided to make one last heist as the town was cleared out? Frantic tears stung at her eyes, mixing with the layer of sweat that came from being in a tightly packed bus in muggy heat. If she had just brought him home that night, his wouldn't have happened. He'd still be high, and she'd still be angry, but at least she would have been able to keep an eye on him.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, an increasingly desperate Mami let her eyes dart around the bus, looking for a way to get out. The window? No, she was too far away, and she couldn't fit through if she wanted to. Nudging her way to the front was impossible; everyone was too close together to give her space to move. She then glanced upwards, as she normally did when thinking, when she noticed it. The escape hatch! It was on the ceiling, as usual, and just big enough for her to fit through. But how was she going to get up there?

Mami was wondering how to climb up onto the backs of the seat when she locked eyes with someone. A man, who was standing nearby during her pleas to get off of the bus. A rather tall man, a man with a knowing smile on his face. He gave a brief nod at the escape hatch, and, with a rush of excitement running through her, Mami smiled and inched her way closer. He then lifted her, doing the best he could with the limited space he had, and she opened the door and hoisted herself up.

"Kamina?!" Mami cried out as loud as she could, standing on the man's shoulders and trying to pick Kamina out from the sea of people flocking to vehicles around her, like chickens with their heads cut off. "Kamina, where are you?" Her skin tingled as light raindrops fell upon it, and suddenly, she felt a pang of worry in her gut. There were lots of legends about the storm that was coming, and none of them ended positively. In his altered state, she reasoned, there was no way that Kamina would survive it. Calling his name over and over, Mami began to pull herself up so that she could climb out of the bus and jump off, silencing the passengers complaining about rain falling on their heads.