Morg: Heyo! I hope you guys are ready for something awesome!

Ikuto: Probably not.

Amu: Nope!

Morg: Well, get ready!

Ikuto: I'd rather not.

Amu: Nope!

Morg: It is days like this that I'm glad that I don't actually own you.

~The Eighth Sea~

"Ikuto?"

It didn't matter if he had his eyes closed or not. The darkness within the box they were in was absolute. Amu was literally on top of him and he couldn't see her face through the darkness. He could feel her breath upon his face. There was a tickle against his neck where her hair brushed against his skin. She was closer to him than ever and yet he couldn't see her. "Yes, Amu?"

Shifting just a bit in an attempt to put some kind of distance between them, Amu gave up and let her face rest against his neck once again. "Are we going to get out of here?"

Despite them being forced to touch each other, Ikuto had been trying to keep his hands to himself. It wouldn't be polite for him to touch Amu somewhere by accident when they were already in a tough situation. Still, he did his best to sneak one hand up onto her back so that he could rub up and down her spine in some sort of comfort. "That depends on our crew. We've got a very small chance ourselves to get out of here but I trust the others."

That wasn't quite the answer that Amu was hoping to hear. However, it was better than a resounding 'no' would have been. "Do you think they can do it?"

Chuckling, Ikuto pressed his jaw against the side of Amu's head in an act of comfort. "They have Dia. She might not look like much, but that girl is so much more than anyone else in this world. She'll find us and the others will rescue us."

Ikuto sounded so certain to her that Amu decided it was best to just share his faith in the crew. They were her friends now. She did trust them. Pressing her face further into Ikuto's neck, Amu let out a sigh. "This is better than the bottom of that cove. At least there is air to breathe."

Pressing down on Amu's back to hold her just a bit tighter, Ikuto didn't say his thoughts out loud. For now. They had air for now.

XXX

The sun rose slowly over the ocean. Kukai was ready for it. He and most of the other members of the crew were standing at the rail of the ship, ready to get into the boats to head back to the beach and follow Dia to wherever she led them. "Is it necessary for us to find the natives?"

Standing silently for a moment, Dia let her eyes fall shut. "We will find them whether we want to or not. They are protecting their sacrifices."

Kukai didn't like the sound of that. From the faces of the other crew members, they didn't either. "Tell me we aren't too late?"

"They are alive. For now. We have to hurry."

With the sun fully in the sky, Kukai gave the signal. "Do not harm anyone unless you have to. The goal is to get Amu and Ikuto back alive. We don't want them hurrying along the sacrifices because we started killing people."

The members of the crew going ashore were listening as they climbed into the boats and began to lower them. They would not disobey Kukai's orders ordinarily. The fact that two of their friends' lives hung in the balance, not to mention one of them was their captain, meant that they would do anything to follow those orders.

Calling for them to move, Kukai grabbed a set of oars and helped move one of the two boats heading for the shore forward. The other followed his. "Dia! You will take the lead! We must be as quick as we can!"

Dia was the last person that Kukai needed to be reminding that speed was necessary. She knew exactly what was happening to Amu and Ikuto. She knew how much time they had left and it wasn't very much.

XXX

The air was growing thinner. Ikuto could feel it with every breath that he took. His lungs didn't fill quite so fully and he felt a bit out of breath. He could also hear how shallow Amu's breathing was becoming. "Amu?"

Shifting her head just enough to show that she was awake, Amu let out a slight moan. "I'm getting tired, Ikuto. And I don't know if it is because of the air or because of the drugs."

Amu going to sleep now could be dangerous. There was the chance that she wouldn't wake back up. A chance that Ikuto found himself not willing to take. "Amu, I need you to find my hand, okay?"

Shifting a bit, Amu did as was asked and let her fingers slide down Ikuto's arm until she found his hand beside their bodies. "Why?"

"Every time I squeeze your hand, you need to squeeze mine back, okay?"

Nodding her head, Amu squeezed his hand right after Ikuto squeezed hers to show that she would follow his instructions. "Why are we doing this?"

Squeezing his eyes shut even though it didn't make a difference, Ikuto pressed his head down against the wood beneath him before relaxing once more. "It'll be our way of asking if the other person is okay and still awake. It'll also be the way to answer."

Amu nodded again while letting out a shaky breath. "Okay."

Ikuto really didn't like the way she was sounding. She was almost too calm like she'd given up on them being rescued and was preparing to die. He, on the other hand, was almost about to start panicking. He couldn't lose her. Not again. "Amu! Amu, listen to me, okay? Squeeze my hand for me."

She squeezed her fingers to show that she was listening but didn't attempt to talk.

Sucking in another shallow breath, Ikuto turned his head to press a kiss to Amu's hair. "You promised me, you know? You promised to never forget me. But we've been together for so long now and you've never seen me. Why did you forget me, Amu? What happened to you after you left that made you forget your Ikuto?"

Amu tried to force her eyes open. The words were pounding against her brain, but she was having a hard time understanding what they meant. Ikuto sounded both desperate and sad. Amu didn't like that. She didn't want him to sound that way. So she squeezed his hand.

Forcing himself to breathe so that he wouldn't start crying and using up their precious oxygen, Ikuto squeezed the hand in his back. She was listening to him now. "I have always loved you, Amu. But you were going to marry someone else. What was I supposed to think? I wanted to get you as far away from me as possible, but it didn't help. You kept sneaking right back onto my ship and into my heart. I don't know what to do with you anymore. But please, don't leave me anymore. Don't go somewhere without me again. Stay with me, Amu. Stay with me!"

Weakly, Amu tried to squeeze the hand squeezing hers back. She found that she really couldn't do it. All she wanted to do was fall asleep. So she let go. The blackness didn't change so Amu didn't worry.

Ikuto pressed more kisses to the side of Amu's head while holding her hand tightly. He knew she was gone from him, but he was determined to not leave her again. If they were to die here, at least they would die together. At least he got to hold her one last time.

XXX

Kukai fired a shot into the air that had the natives scrambling away from freshly turned earth. They'd been sitting around the spot and chanting while swaying. The first mate didn't need Dia to tell him where Ikuto and Amu were anymore. He had a sickening feeling that he knew exactly where they were. "Find shovels! We have to get them out of there!"

At that moment, Kukai realized that Utau should never have been allowed to come with them to find Ikuto and Amu.

Crying out, Utau ran to the loose dirt and started trying to dig it away with just her hands. "Ikuto! Ikuto! Tell me that you can hear me! IKUTO!"

Grabbing Utau around her waist and pulling her back, Kukai held the sobbing girl while the others got to work with digging. He would have rather been one of the ones with a shovel to make sure he could get that dirt moved as quickly as possible, but Kukai knew that his place was with Utau. Nagi, Daichi, and Kairi were doing just fine with shoveling. "They'll be fine, Utau. We're going to get them out. We're going to get them out."

The others in the party there to recuse their friends kept the natives from approaching. They seemed as though they wanted to, but the gunfire had scared them away.

Kukai tried keeping one eye on the natives and one eye on the diggers while also paying attention to Utau. He was being strung so thin, but he also knew that becoming captain wasn't going to be any easier. He wanted to avoid that job at all costs. "Come on, guys! Dig!"

Nagihiko's shovel hit against something other than dirt. "We're there, Kukai! They're in some sort of coffin! We're going to get them out!"

"Oh, gods!"

Hugging Utau to his chest, Kukai did his best to block her view. He really didn't want her to see them pull her brother out of a coffin, whether the captain was dead or alive. "Don't look, Utau. Just don't look yet."

Moving forward, Dia rested her hand on Kukai's shoulders. "They're not dead."

Those words meant more to the first mate than any others spoken that day. "Thank the heavens."

Nagi worked with Kairi and Daichi to pull the wooden coffin out of the earth. They used their shovels to pry the top off and found Amu being held by Ikuto. The captain and the girl were both asleep, but they were clearly breathing.

Looking for only a moment, Kukai made certain that Utau couldn't see anything. "Get them out of there. Carry them back to the ship. You can look them over there, Kairi. We need to get out of here. The rest of you watch our backs. I want no surprises on the way back."

Kairi was quick to check over the two as they came out of the coffin. There was a bit of trouble getting them to let go of each other as they had held tightly to each other when they'd fallen asleep. Still, it was managed. "From what I can tell, they just need a bit of fresh oxygen and then they'll wake up."

Kukai led the way out of the forest and back to the beach. They climbed back into their boats and returned to the ship. Once they were on the deck, he allowed for Utau to go and see her brother. "Put them in Ikuto's cabin together. It wouldn't be good if one of them woke without the other at first. We can explain everything later. For now, let's get out of here."

Squeezing Ikuto's hand before letting go, Utau stood straight before heading for the helm. "Lower the sails and fasten them tight! We're putting as much space between this wretched island and ourselves as possible!"

In those few minutes, Kukai was never more proud of the crew. They worked flawlessly to get the ship out of that cove and back onto the sea without delay. Utau set them a course and stood firm at the wheel. The others saw to their jobs and readied the ship for sailing. All Kukai had to do was follow Kairi into the captain's cabin and stand nearby as their doctor looked over the two that they'd just pulled from the earth.

"They're going to be fine, Kukai. They both just need to sleep a bit more. They'll wake when their bodies are ready. If it doesn't happen within a day or two, I'll wake them myself."

Nodding, Kukai patted Kairi on the shoulder before the other male left. There was no harm done to his friends besides the fact that they'd been sent to an early grave together. He was sure that they'd wake in no time at all.

Turning to leave, Kukai missed the movement of Ikuto's hand as the captain managed to get Amu's back into his. The sleeping male gave the girl's hand a gentle squeeze. A small squeeze was returned, but Kukai didn't witness any of it.

.

Morg: So there's that.

Ikuto: Well shit.

Amu: Okay then.

Morg: Yep.