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Akiro went red. "Glad you enjoyed it," he mumbled. He wasn't used to being teased, made fun of, yes, but not teasing. But coming from her, it was different. He gave a long sigh, running a hand through his hair. Akiro was still tired and starving, only being able to eat what Chelsea had given him, and the three strips of meat that had been in his bag. Hopefully, he could find something when he got home, Ashley wasn't evil, she still fed him. Home...that was definitely not what he would call the place that he lived. There, he felt like a guest, a stranger. It made him angry just thinking about it, but he pushed those feelings down.

---

Chelsea giggled at Akiro's embarrassment, her smile never waning. They we there, in the arms of freedom. Better yet, they were there together. Stepping over to Akiro, she wrapped her arms around him, gazing into his eyes with a silent question. After a moment, she spoke. "You need some rest. I can lend you my shirt for a pillow, if you'd like. I've got a tank top on underneath, so it's no big deal." Her smile turned kind, a large difference from the amusement she got from seeing him blush. She wanted only to help him, and her smile was what proved that.

After stopping to get her breath, she replied with a simple “Yeah, thankfully she isn’t all that heavy...” and she was right, Rui was as light as a... heavy pillow... again, terrible analogy but it worked. The bad thing was, she couldn’t use her arms to get a good grip on Rui, and she was the weakest person alive. She never had to use much strength before, so she never found a reason to enhance it. She looked up at Akiro and Chelsea, who were already making their way onto the ship. She could feel Rui’s tears dripping onto her back, which sent a chill every time one fell. “We’re here...” she informed Jacovin, a bit worried about him getting up. After reassuring herself that he would do it without much trouble, her mind moved to how Rui would be able to get up there. She didn’t have her hands wrapped around her neck, and Lesia’s arms didn’t work so... She would need to fix them before she tried anything, which was doing to take a while. She thought about using her powers for a fan to lift Rui up, but she knew it wouldn’t be powerful enough to lift a human. Besides, if it didn’t work and Rui fell, she would be instantly cut to pieces... “The ladder is right here, can you climb it?” She asked Jacovin, guiding his hand to the ladder.

---

Akiro sighed. He could tell that Chelsea was being kind this time, and he did appreciate it, but there was no way that he'd be lucky enough to escape a nightmare twice in a row. Then again, maybe he could. The nightmares had stopped after Chelsea woke him up, so maybe he could go without waking up in a cold sweat. "Alright, I'll rest, but I'm used to going without a pillow, it's no big deal, don't worry." He moved so that his head was against the wall of the hovercraft, closing his eyes and still smiling. "See? Already falling asleep."

---

Jacovin rested his hand on the ladder, then reached up to the next rung. "I think I can manage." Slowly, he started to climb the ladder. With one arm, it was clearly difficult, but he managed to make it without much trouble. After entering the hovercraft, he allowed himself to be guided to a seat and sat down, though he wasn't able to tell who had guided him there.


-=-


Sighing, Chelsea sat down next to Akiro and patted her lap. "I could work as your pillow, too. I also want to play with your hair, but that's not important." She giggled a little to herself, awaiting Akiro's reply.

Katana and Charlie race towards the Hovercraft. Once they are safely inside, Katana places her hands on her knees and desperately tries to catch her breath. Footsteps approach them, Milo slowly moves down the stairs from the Captain's headquarters and pauses by the entrance, he stares at Katana and Charlie, silently waiting for one of them to notice him. His soft smile turns tight when he catches Katana. How will she react he wonders.

"Milo!" Charlie shouts. She races towards him and jumps into his arms. Their moment is cut short when Charlie pulls away just enough to look into his eyes. She gasps and places a hand on his cheek, but stares at the other. "What happened?" She asks, catching a scar running over his eye and running down his cheek.
"Just an accident." Milo assures. "I'm fine, don't worry." He gently places her back onto the ground and removes her hand from his face, but he doesn't release it. Together, they walk over to an annoyed Katana.
"Why did you wait so long?" Katana snaps.
"These things take time, you know that." Milo replies calmly. He tips his head to the side, watching her carefully. "Can you forgive me?" He asks. There is a moment of silence, then Katana races forward and hugs her brother. It takes everything Milo has not to cry. He pulls away and places a hand on her shoulder, smiling in appreciation before removing his hand and walking over to Coraline and Bella. "Welcome, there is a medbay on this ship, why don't you take care of yourself." He smiles. "Thank you, both of you, for joining this fight."

---

"Alright Chelsea, because I just escaped imminent death and I love you, I'll let you play with my hair. Though why I have no idea." He moved so that his head was in her lap, folding his arms across his stomach. Now that they were actually in the hovercraft, it felt all the more real. And with the sounds of the hovercraft filling his ears, he was already starting to fall asleep.

---

Though the two are confused at Milo's words, Bella gives him a smile. "Veemo!"

Thankfully for Coraline, Lucky was already stitching up the worse part of the wound that had opened up again. She looked up at Milo in confusion. "Boxie?"

Ellie looks up at Milo. "Wait, are we going home?" The thought excited her, she would get to see her family again!

---

Chelsea smiled, kissing Akiro's forehead and saying, "I love you too," then started to braid a few locks of his hair together, though it was a rather short braid. After a few minutes, Akiro had a successful braid, and Chelsea was falling asleep as well. She was comfortable here, too. Akiro was close to her, which made it better. The thrumming of the hovercraft around them was hypnotic as it was calming, and sent Chelsea quickly to sleep too.

Lesia let out a sigh of relief as soon as he managed to make it up, now more focused on Rui. She set her down and knelt down in front of her. “I’m gonna have to stay down here for a bit to fix these” she made very slight movements to her arms, showing Rui what she meant “so I want you to go ahead and go up there.” She gave a smile and stood back up again. “If you don’t go, I’ll find a way to get you up, so there’s no point.” She said, not harshly, but worryingly. Rui, as expected, didn’t listen and stayed put. She gave a sigh and sat down to began working on her arms. “Fine, I guess you’ll help me out then...”

---

Akiro dreamed again. But this was was more strange than terrifying. The hands that had been threatening to tear him apart let go suddenly, and he was thrown forward, stumbling into a dark room filled with smoke. He couldn't see or hear anything, and for a minute, he just stood there. Suddenly, huge eyes started appearing everywhere, all locked on him. He froze. The eyes were terrifying, huge, and intimidating. "What do you want from me?" he said in his dream, though he mumbled it a bit out loud. The eyes did not respond, but then, echoing through the room, were the sounds of humming. That tune was familiar. That tune was awful and painful, and he tried to block it out, sinking to the ground. He was crying, screaming for the song to stop, but it didn't. He couldn't move, he couldn't do anything at all. Outside of his dream, he was frozen, silently crying.

---

Lesia started by very slowly and inaccurately opening up the arm like she would normally do. She was used to doing this at this point, but she had at least one working arm while doing so. She would usually be able to easily fix this, as she could tell just from looking at it, but she didn’t have much to help her. She stopped for a moment and thought, wondering how she would instruct Rui to do it. She never had to say anything, as everyone else who worked in them already knew what to do. She began by telling Rui what needed to be cleaned, without giving her any sort of materials to do so. Rui tried to do what was asked of her by using her fingers, clearly confused while she was doing so. Realizing this, Lesia gave a sigh before telling her where she could find said materials, then they began to work. After a lot of effort and confusion, she finally got one arm at least somewhat functional. It wasn’t enough to be precise, but she was pretty sure she could work on the other one from here. And that’s what she did, she slowly and carefully began to work, giving that arm the same condition. It wasn’t the best, but she was sure she didn’t have much time and needed it done quickly. At least she could move it... She put everything away and rested Rui on her back, forcing her hands to wrap around her neck. She would have to climb it one handed to make sure Rui wouldn’t fall, but she was sure she could do it. She had a lot of trouble at first with her balance and lack of strength, as well as a considerable amount of weight being applied to her neck, but she managed to fix all of that and make her way up slowly. As soon as she did, she put Rui down and looked at the other tributes, noticing something was wrong. She went over to Akiro and Chelsea, who appeared to be sleeping. Chelsea seemed ok, but Akiro... “Hey... Wake up...” she gently nudged him to try and wake him up, unsure if it would work.

Milo smiles, he hands the box that Lucky gave him over to her. "You should have this back, I appreciate the gesture, but I feel like this is more important for you to have."

---

The humming wouldn't stop, no matter how much he screamed, begged, pleaded, it would not cease. In fact, it seemed to be getting louder. No no no no he had to make it stop, he had to. The memories kept crashing down, and he wanted to make it stop. All that pain, coming back, so fast, but it was all in his head- He was jolted awake, sitting up a little with a gasp, tears still streaming down his face. He realized that Lesia had woken him up, and he looked away, embarrassed. What was he supposed to say? All that he hoped was that he hadn't woken up Chelsea.

---

She gave him a small, sad smile before walking away, leaving him be. She wasn’t sure what was going on with him, but she didn’t want him to feel like that. She looked back at Rui and Jacovin with a concerned look, before asking them if they were alright and leaving. She wanted to know what was going on, and exploring the ship seemed be the way to do so

Rui watched as Akiro was waken up, feeling bad for him as she watched him cry. She looked at Lesia before she left, curious to what she was doing, but decided not to do anything and set her gaze to the floor. She began to drift off to sleep, her exhaustion overwhelming her.

---

Chelsea awoke slowly, the sudden loss of Akiro's head change enough to wake her. When her eyes opened, she looked first around the ship, then at Akiro. He'd been shedding tears, likely from another nightmare. Chelsea beckoned him over, opening her arms and offering a supportive smile. She hoped that she would be able to comfort Akiro, mostly because she didn't know what she would do if she couldn't.

Akiro sat up more, mostly to hug her, burying his face in her shoulder. "At least I didn't scream that time," he mumbled. That would've made it worse. The tune was still stuck in his head, and he couldn't make it stop, but now that he had calmed down some, he didn't panic. "I didn't think that I'd have another one so quickly." It seemed like they wouldn't stop, just kept going on and on each time he went to sleep.

---

Chelsea held Akiro to her body, kissing the top of his head and rubbing his back. "They'll stop soon, I promise." She wasn't sure if she could keep that promise. She wasn't sure if it comforted Akiro, either. She could only hope. Her mind wandered a little, and before she knew it, she was humming a slow tune, a lullaby from when she was a little girl. She remembered when she had nightmares, and when her brother came in and sat on the edge of her bed, singing the same quiet tune to help her to sleep.

At first, Akiro thought, *I can only hope* He certainly hoped that she didn't feel the scars running down his back through his shirt. He had only now remembered that they were there. But when she started humming, the song in his head was droned out, and he visibly relaxed, though his face was still wet with tears. Now that he had stopped hearing that song, Akiro felt more anchored. He could actually belive that the nightmares would stop, that he could figure out why. Why was he seeing these things?

---

As Chelsea hummed, she took the edge of her shirt and started to wipe away what remained of Akiro's tears. Her touch was soft, even softer than usual. As his cheeks were dried, Chelsea brought him closer, hugging him tight to her and kissing his cheek. She wanted to protect this new addition to her, this vulnerable piece that mattered the most. Whatever it cost, she would guard him and comfort him whenever he needed it, even if he didn't know he needed it. As Chelsea hummed, she loosened her grip a little, allowing Akiro to lay back down, if he so desired.