Maximus swam still and saw that Saina was losing consciousness, his arms pumped even faster to get to her. The monster had let go of her as his ice shattered, causing her to float up slightly. He wrapped his arms around her and started back for the surface, grunting as the air was running out in his lungs and his arms began to burn, begging for air. He took in a breath but quickly closed it before too much water came in, this only caused him to cough more and start choking.
This was the time something swam under him and Saina and lifted them back out of the water. Maximus hacked up the water that had gotten into his lungs. He started taking deep breaths to calm down and looked over at Saina still in his arms, but before he could see if she was OK he too was knocked out as the squid flailed and piece of a barrel managed to clock him in the back of the head.
Maximus was suddenly awoken, his eyes instantaneously growing wide at the sudden pressure on his back Grunting in pain and in doing so pushing all the air out of his chest. He tried to breath in, only taking in sand in the process and coughing more and more. He tried to yell, but with all the air out of his lungs it was quite impossible. Gritting his teeth he spun his head around to see the giant blue bird on top of him. Growling he hated these damn birds. With all of his strength he turned back to the sand and pushed up, slowly but surely lifting up the bird on top of his back.
Mercury opened his eyes and turned to look at the warrior monk he sat upon with squinted eyes. He flapped his flightless wings unhappily as he was pushed off, giving the man below him a peck on the head before traipsing off to do better things like chase his ball and nap in the shade, chirping unhappily all the way.
Taking in a major breath of air as the bird was pushed off of him, only to curse loudly as the infernal bird pecked him on the back of the head before running off. Gripping his blade he unsheathed it and stumbled a few steps in the sand before falling back into it, stabbing his blade all the way to the hilt in the sand as he did. Cursing again as his body screamed in pain. He looked at the bird as it chased after it's ball his growing hatred for the bird went away partially as he saw Saina on her knees looking to the ocean. Even from his position he could tell she wasn't well. Crawling over and gritting over the pain he finally managed to get up and slowly walk over to her. He looked almost like a wet drunk as he walked, dizzy from being dehydrated as well, not as bad though. He could find some water and be fine. But Saina...
Falling to his knees as well as he pulled a potion from his satchel behind his back, he then handed to her, "Here... take it." He said horsely, as the sand still coated the insides of his mouth.
Saina looked up from her inner musings, her slightly dulled eyes finding his instantly. Then her gaze locked the potion and she took it from him, her fingers shaking. She had trouble uncorking it but eventually managed to wiggle it off. Trembling, she raised the vial to her lips and downed half of it, her nose wrinkling at the taste of it mixing with the bile in the back of her throat. She lowered her head, forcing herself to swallow without expelling the contents of her stomach again. Her expression began to relax as her body instantly took the potion's properties into it's system. She leaned over, resting her cold--but not freezing as usual--head on the older man's shoulder, passing him the other half of the bottle with glazed eyes. She felt somehow nostalgic, like this man was a dear friend of hers from a long time ago... but she'd never seen Maximus before, much less met him. Why then did it feel so natural to take comfort in the leather pressing against her cheek?
"Thank you... Maximus..."
When she spoke it sounded like sandpaper covered her throat, though it was noticeably getting better as her strength returned to her bit by bit. Maximus sighed when Saina's head rested on his shoulder, his eyes closing he went to wrap his arm around her in a embrace...but hesitated, she didn't remember him at all as he remembered. He simply took the vial that she handed him and re-corked it before putting it back into his satchel. He wasn't bad enough to waste the rest of it. It was at that moment that Sifen called to them from behind. Curious as to what he wanted and surprised he was near them at all, she lifted her head from Maximus' shoulder to look behind the two of them. She dropped the potion into Maximus's hand and stood up instantly, her hands covering her mouth and her eyes wide as she faced Sifen. Her surreal hair flowed behind her with every motion and the cloak attached to her hip swayed in sync with it as well. Maximus also noticed Sifen calling to them and looked up at him. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Sifen there was something................off. He couldn't believe his eyes and was thinking it was just the dehydration working against him. Maybe he was a little worse than he thought.
Sifen looked to see the shocked faces of the others on the beach. What was wrong? His hand looked bad but it couldn't be THAT bad could it? He stood up and began walking over. He waddled over, limping a bit from the pain in his legs after straining to swim those last few moments after injecting the potion from that machina. "Whats wrong?" He asked the two. He noticed that their eyes darted between his eyes and his hand. "This?" he brought his hand up using good arm, the wrist flailed around freely and the fingers followed. Strangely, his palm was facing an impossible direction, his left hand was opening to the left. Sifen's face went paler than it already was and he let out a scream that started off soft and got progressively louder. Saina followed suit screaming in unison.
"aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
Maximus shuttered at the sight but did not yell. He looked away and grew even more dizzy as he pressed a hand to his mouth after seeing such a grotesque hand.
"WHY IS IT BENDING LIKE THAT?" Sifen yelled, questioning the sudden appearance of several new joints in his forearm. Maximus looked back at him and coughed, holding back his stomach. Looking away again. Behind him the hand flailed around but Sifen felt no pain, so he didn't stop flailing it around wildly. But Maximus could hear the slapping of the hand and could see it in his head. "STOP IT." He growled as he almost threw up again. Though it probably would have been good to get the rest of the sea water out of him if anything.
Meanwhile, Saina was hyperventilating. Usually her stomach could bear such sights and she had seen much worse before, but she was already sick. She turned away and puked onto the sand... again. "Yevon have mercy..." She spat out the taste in her mouth and dry heaved when she tried to look at it again, forcing herself to turn away. Maximus saw Saina puke as he had looked away from Sifen and groaned. He tried to hold it in. He hated puking. His neck began to tingle and he knew it was coming ."Oh Yevon..." He puked as well, followed shortly by Sifen.
After a moment of them groaning and throwing up, Maximus spat a few more times. The sand was now clear from his mouth. But he would have rather had the sand taste than the bile that passed through it.
"I... I can't feel it." Sifen said, pouring sand onto the limb. "Why is it black? What are those cuts from? What do I do? Should we... Cut it off?" Sifen questioned. He had buried the hand up to the wrist in sand, waiting for the warm sensation he knew in the desert. But nothing came. It was dead.
Despite the obvious Maximus answered, "It's black because it's dead. As for the cuts I don't know, could very well be from the ship as it was split in half." He spat out some more bile and got up, moving slightly away and back to his sword. Falling to his knee to grab the hilt. He took a few breaths and pulled it from the sand. Bringing it high above his head and swinging quickly down to the right, barely skimming the sand as he shook off the wet sand on it.
Sifen saw him grabbing his sword. "Woah woah woah! It was just a suggestion! I'd rather keep it! Maybe we could uh... maybe like.. A um, healing potion?" Sifen spat the words out nervously. He knew it wouldn't help but he didn't enjoy the thought of losing a limb. Saina looked up at where Sifen stood and bit her lip. All of them knew it needed to happen, but her stomach still did back flips at the idea. She looked at Maximus as she tied her hair back in a ponytail, glad that neither of them seemed to notice its odd flowing properties.
"No... No potion can bring back a dead limb I don't think," As she talked she walked up to Sifen, focusing her mana as much as possible in her weakened state, trying to not look at his dead forearm. She started to raise her hand up but stopped and licked her lips, thinking. "You appreciate guns and.... machina, right?" Even the word felt bitter on her tongue.
Maximus stood back up slowly and looked back to them, his blade lightly in his hand as he looked at Sifen, the tip of his blade just barely touching the ground. "We will have to cut it off. There is nothing we can do to save it." He said very calmly, despite still being grossed out at the sight of his arm. He cocked his head to the side at Saina's question. What was she getting at?
"Of course!" Sifen said to Saina. What a dumb question, of course he liked Machina and guns, Guns WERE machina after all. "It's what I spent my entire childhood preoccupied with, roaming around Bikanel going from-" THUNK! Saina slammed an ice-covered fist into his jaw, uppercutting him onto the sand and knocking him out instantly. She panted, feeling awful about this whole thing and looked to Maximus. His arms fell to the sides of him, leaving Sifen in a T shape on the sand.
"We're going to have to cut it off."
Maximus was surprised as she uppercutted him mid sentence. It made sense now why she asked about the Machina. Nodding his head head and walked over to Sifen. He looked down at the man and pulled the last of the potion he had and handed it back to Saina, "Give it to him as soon as I cut his arm off." He waited for her to take it before gripping the sword with both of his hands. He let out a breath before raisng his blade high above him.
"Wait!"
Maximus paused with his arms up as he looked at Saina. "What?" He asked. Saina looked at him in disbelief as the ice on her fist faded away.
"You're going to do it like that?" She asked, gesturing to his sword. "Don't be so reckless! With how you're going with that cleaver you'll slice half his body off!"
He blinked at her a few times. Looking at his blade he lowered it again in front of him and raised an eyebrow. He then looked back to her and said, "It's a KATANA. Not a Butchers cleaver!" He said it a little defensively, as if offended that she would call it as such. He straightened his shoulders and raised his blade again, " Besides, I'm fine thank you." He finished as he quickly slashed downwards to get it over with before she would argue more with him. THUMP. Was the only sound that could be heard as the blade cut clean through his arm and bone like it was...a wet noodle... The sound was only the blade hitting the sand under it.
"No wait! ...Ugh...!" She powerslided onto the sand and immediately worked up her mana to ice over the already profusely bleeding wound.
Raising his blade again he quickly slashed to the right, the blood spraying off of it away from them. He then placed the blade on his right shoulder as Saina quickly covered the arm in Ice. Her face looked up at him one she was satisfied and she stood up, marching over to Maximus and stood in front of him, having to look up due to her unbearably short stature.
"Do you always act with such insubordination or are you just that rash?"
Maximus had a blank expression on his face as she stood up and marched over to him. His head pulling back in confusion at her sudden outburst. Insubordination? Rash? What's her deal? "Look, If that arm was dead, it would spread if we waited longer. Also the potion would have stopped the bleeding as well, and I was going to cast a fire spell on my blade and cauterize the arm to keep it sealed. It's done, why are you upset?"
"If you were going to do all of that to begin with you should have told me! We work as a team, as a unit, before anything was done you should have said something." She visibly scowled in frustration and her hands clenched at her sides and she huffed. "Yevon, you're worse than--"
She looked as though she had been shot as she cut herself off. Her eyes looked at his face a few moments more before she turned away, her fingers rubbing her lips in thought as she mulled over what was in her head. Whatever it was, it brought her mood down considerably and she even looked a little sad now.
Maximus took this moment to answer, not seeing her face as she had turned away. "Well it's obvious as what else we could do out here. I'm no doctor in any means. Also Insubordination would mean you are in charge. When did-" He stopped as he noticed she was sad. "What... Whats wrong?" He looked her over once and narrowed his eyes trying to realize what was happening. He then connected it might because of what she was going to say. "I'm like who??" a Sudden hope came to his mind, perhaps she remembered him some how. Saina looked at him, her eyes full of uncertainty.
"It ... It doesn't matter..." She looked out at the sea, her heart beating loudly in her ears. "I... please, forget I said anything...!" She went to step away from him further but as soon as she took the step her knees were buckling on her again and she began to fall towards the sand. She'd used just too much mana in her sickly state,
He watched her as she answered him. It was definitely something. She stepped away and he quickly reached out and wrapped his arms around her. "Saina!" He cursed under his breath as he lowered her slowly to her knees. "Take it easy for a moment." He said as he caught himself falling backwards. He needed to take it easy as well. But they all couldn't clock out he had to make sure they would be fine. Saina clutched tightly to the front of Maximus' coat and found herself burying her head there for a moment, much to her own surprise. Small tears formed in her misting eyes but she shoved them back, only loosening her hold after a good moment. Maximus was taken off guard as she started to cry as she gripped his kimono tightly. He wanted to know what was wrong but he decided it was best to leave it alone for a moment.
Maximus stood back up and moved over to Sifen, bending down he grabbed the mans legs and began to pull. There was no way he could lift the man at the moment, he needed to get some water soon or he will be in just a bad place like Saina was earlier. Grunting as he continued to pull the man and all his armor towards the shade.
He allowed the mans legs to flop down as he stumbled back over to Saina, wiping his brow as he came to her. "Alright your turn." He said as he reached down wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted with that arm only, till she was high enough where he wrapped his other arm under her legs, carrying her slowly to the shade as well. Saina didn't protest, allowing herself to be carried in the strangely familiar mans arms and into the shade.
Once there he laid her gently down against a tree, much unlike Sifen who he had let his legs flop minutes before. Saina looked at him and nodded her thanks, resting her back against the tree as she looked up at the sky. She hadn't gotten her fill of the stars last night, and that idea alone made her even more blue than she already was. She looked at Maximus, her eyes very tired suddenly.
"You act as though you know me, Maximus. And you feel familiar. I... would like to know why."