Waiting is the worst part. Waiting to hear what's happened. Waiting to hear of any improvement. Waiting to hear of death. Waiting for just anything at all. It's painful. The feeling of not knowing can drive a person mad.

When I had finally come to my senses in the launch room, I had changed as quick as I possibly could into my normal outfit and ran straight to the boat, a few people following in my tracks. Now I sit in the waiting room, constantly squirming around in the chair. My eyes are still slightly red and puffy from crying. Andy, MIX, Yunoha, Zessica, Malloy, Cayenne, and even Shrade wait with me. I want to see Amata so badly.

Please let him be okay, I pray silently. Let him be alright.

I can't stop thinking about Yunoha's words from earlier. Maybe she's right. Maybe it isn't my fault after all. I can't blame myself for this, and yet I still feel guilty for some reason. Maybe you're just being too hard on yourself.

I look through the window. The moon is almost at its peak in the sky. We've been waiting here for a while now, and we're all getting restless. I play with the hem of my skirt, hoping that if I keep my hands busy it'll take my mind off of the situation. Andy sits next to me, wringing his beanie with his hands. MIX cleans the lenses of her glasses while Yunoha and Zessica try to make small talk. Cayenne, Malloy, and Shrade sit in silence. Shush jumps up and down on my shoulder.

Finally, a nurse carrying a clipboard and a doctor come in and everyone stands up, anxious to hear the news.

"I'm Doctor Tachibana, Amata's official doctor," the doctor introduces himself. "And this is Nurse Robinson."

The nurse dips her head. "Please. Just call me Nurse Rachael."

"Nurse Rachael, would you care to explain everything?"

She sighs before speaking, "Amata is stable at the moment, but in critical condition."

Cayenne steps forward. "How bad?"

The nurse bites her lip and looks off in the direction of the hallway. "Well, I don't know how to put this gently." She sighs and continues. "Amata has suffered a severe concussion and massive internal bleeding. When he was first brought in two days ago with a gunshot wound, we noticed one of his ribs was fractured. However, in the battle, that fracture grew bigger and eventually caused the bone to shatter, sending the shards flying into major organs and making them rupture. This is what started some of the bleeding. He was banged around pretty badly in the fight, which just made things worse, and the gunshot wound also opened up. All of this blood collected in his chest cavity. He's been hemorrhaging badly." She unclips something from her clipboard and holds up an x-ray. It appears to be Amata's chest and torso, but none of his insides are visible. The entire picture of his body is cloudy white. The nurse points at it. "This is his x-ray before surgery. All of this here is blood. Basically-"

"He's drowning in his own blood..." MIX says softly as she puts a hand over her mouth. "Oh my God..."

Nurse Rachel nods sadly and returns the x-ray to the clipboard. "Yes. I guess that's the best way to put it, or the worst way." She has to take a breath before adding, "Based off of what I've been told, Aquarion can magnify an Element's powers and their life-force, as well as drain them. Due to him already being injured, Amata had quite a lot sucked out of him. His immune system is extremely low, and he's very weak."

"W-what does that mean?" I step forward abruptly.

Doctor Tachibana speaks, "If he's too weak, he may not be able to fight this and recover. All of the energy Aquarion took out of him, it might have been too much for a person to handle. I'm sorry, but this is what we are dealing with."

"What the hell does that mean?!" Andy shouts. "You're not making any sense, damn it!"

Doctor Tachibana gives Andy a dirty look before adding, "We managed to drain a lot of the blood from his body and stitch up whatever was ruptured, but who knows if we missed any spots. We're also giving him a blood transfusion, to make up for all the blood he lost."

"Unfortunately, there's still the fact that he has head trauma," Nurse Rachael speaks again. "The brain needs to be able to heal itself, but if he's too weak..."

"His body is shutting down," the doctor chimes in again. "I suggest that you prepare for the worst."

I feel the blood drain from my face and my eyes water. "What are you saying?! He's gonna die?!!"

"There's still a slim chance-"

"Slim?! A SLIM CHANCE?!!"

"Mikono!" Cayenne grabs my arm. "Calm down!"

I turn to him. "How can I calm down?! How exactly am I supposed to calm down when my best friend is dying?!"

No one responds. Everyone just looks at the floor or turns away.

"Can I see him...?" I finally choke out after several moments of silence.

The doctor nods.

We all follow them to his room. It's a different one than last time and it's located in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital. This must be a pretty nice hospital for Amata to have a private room in the ICU. My feet drag as I walk and my whole body feels heavy. When we finally reach the room, both the doctor and the nurse leave us alone. I open the door...

I stand in the doorway, unmoving, eyes wide. It takes several moments for me to comprehend the scene in front of me. No. No! Please tell me this isn't real! This is worse than anything I could've imagined. My legs begin to shake.

He looks half-dead and even paler than before. Tubes run out of his mouth, connected to a ventilator, and another tube runs from his left nostril, taped down to his cheek with medical tape. The wound on his head has been stitched up. All sorts of machines I don't recognize are set up, forming some sort of mechanical army in a battle to keep him alive. Tubes and wires and electrodes run every which way around him, most of them I'm not even sure where they connect. Once I'm finally able to move, I clasp a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. My insides flip and I think I even puke in my mouth a little. Why did this have to happen?

"Oh my God..." My legs shake even more and my lip quivers. "Oh my God! Amata!" I run over to the edge of the bed. This can't be real! Someone please tell me that this is just a bad dream! "No! No! This-this isn't really happening! No!"

"Why don't you sit down?" Shrade pulls a chair over to me. "You look a little pale." He pushes the chair close enough to the bed and I sit. I want to cry. I want to cry so badly, but I hold it in. This is my fault, right?

It's Kagura's. This is his fault, not yours. Right? Right? He did this, for you. He did this because of his love for you.

I want to puke. I think back to Kagura and how he confessed his love for me in his twisted, opposite way. No. His love for Sylvie. Am I really destined to be with him? There is some part of me that wants to be with him, and there is something strangely familiar about him as well, but I don't truly love him. How can I be with him if my current self isn't in love with the person he is now? I feel closer to Amata than I ever did with Kagura.

I take Amata's hands. "No... Don't do this to us, Amata."

Yunoha sits on the edge of the bed and grabs my hands, which are holding Amata's. "His hands are so cold," she says. "They're like ice."

I let go and allow her to have his hand all to herself. "You can hold his hand for a little while if you want. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. In fact, I think he'd like it a lot."

"R-really? You're sure?" She looks at me with wide eyes.

I nod. "It's fine. Your hands are probably warmer than mine anyway." As I sit there, I feel the tears forming in my eyes. "Your hands are probably...warmer..." I begin to sob.

Everyone stops talking to each other and they all look at me as I wrap my arms around Amata and hug him tightly, my face buried in his pillow. It's all my fault. I did this.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. "Mikono," my brother says gently. "It'll be okay." He must think I'm weak. He's always thought of me as a weak little girl who can't do anything on her own.

I feel another hand. This one is Malloy's. "He's gonna be alright. You'll see," he chimes in.

I pull away and press my forehead to Amata's, trying my best not to knock into the tubes that are in his mouth. My hands rest on his chest and I feel the rising and falling of it as he breathes. But he's not really breathing. It's the machine breathing for him, keeping him alive. It makes a clicking sound every time the machine forces air in and out of his lungs. He's so weak, he can't even breathe on his own. He has to rely on life support for everything. "I'm sorry," I cry. "I'm so sorry! It's my fault! It's all my fault! I did this! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I cry so hard that I start to hiccup and my tears drip onto his cheeks. I dry his face, allowing my fingers to trace over the tube in his nose. "He-he has to make it! W-w-what will we..." I can't even finish my sentence.

I feel Yunoha place Amata's hand back in mine. I lift my head up to look at her.

"I think he needs you more than me. You should be the one holding his hand."

I swallow and sit back in the chair, clutching his hand like a lifeline. His hand seems so foreign. So alien. It doesn't look or feel like his hand. It's so cold and pale. So bony. There's a plastic bracelet with his information around his wrist and the heart monitor clip on his index finger. His left hand isn't much better. Several tubes flowing with all different liquids run out of the back of his hand, connected to IV bags hanging on the rack nearby. Amata did nothing to deserve this. No one deserves this. But especially Amata. He works so hard to be the best that he can, and this is what he is given in return. And it's all my fault. I'm responsible.

Why? Why does it hurt so much? Why am I in so much pain? The only other person that this could happen to and make me this upset would be my brother. So why do I feel so...attached to Amata? Why is it killing me inside to see him like this? He's just a friend. Or is he even more than a friend?

"Come on. Why don't you come back tomorrow? I think you've had enough for one day." Cayenne tries to pull me away, but I refuse and shake him off.

"No!" I say firmly. "I am not leaving this room until he wakes up. You hear me?! I am not leaving him!"

Everyone seems a little taken aback.

"Are you sure?" Andy asks.

I nod, and everyone leaves the room. I'm left alone with Amata.

"This is all my fault." Pressing his hand to my cheek, I whisper to him, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." My tears fall onto his hand. "Why...? Why did this have to happen...? You don't deserve this. You deserve to be happy." The tears blur my vision and I have to wipe them away with my sleeve. "I want you to wake up. I want you back. I care about you. Please..." I don't quite know why, but I start to sing. Maybe it's just to comfort myself, or maybe I'm singing to Amata. I don't really know. I just sing, holding his hand against my cheek while my other hand strokes his hair.

"Aquaria... Aquaria... Please descend...upon my garden..." I choke on the words. This is like his song; our song, and I can't even sing it right. I'm crying so much that my tears interfere with my singing. But I keep going. "Even the times...my feelings can't reach you...it makes me stronger..."

That line. That dreadful, untrue line. My feelings aren't reaching him, but I don't feel stronger. I feel weaker.

I stop singing as I feel a painful, burning sensation that rises up from my stomach, into my chest, and then escapes from me in the form of wailing. I'm glad that everyone else left, so they can't see me like this. I cry like I've never cried before. If I had to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten, this would be much higher than almost any "ten" imaginable.