(Shizuru/Natsuki, Mai/Mikoto) First part out of two before dropped.
Read The One Most Precious pt 1
Disclaimer: Based on the anime Mai HiME, set a short while after the end of the series. I might possibly have changed some small things from what they are in the anime, such as maybe ages.
If you can accept, oh I don't know, flying squid/dragons and metal wolves, then I'm sure you can just nod and accept my flimsy excuse for having Shizuru and Haruka employed at the school. ;P
The One Most Precious pt 1 of 2
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by Carola “Ryûchan” Eriksson
Kuga Natsuki stared in disgust at the schoolbooks thrown in a haphazard pile on the grass next to her feet. For a brief, fleeting moment she had the urge to pick them up, venture over to a particular tree next to one of the school buildings and throw them at the annoying individual who thought he could play teacher to her after all this time. She knew just where to aim, too.
But no, she reminded herself, she was a responsible individual that was above such childish actions… even if the teacher in question thought way too highly of himself for a former secret agency dog, and even if he had rather successfully ruined her semi-planned summer of relaxation and introspection.
Not to mention that if she did, he would probably make good on his threat to make her re-do all three years of school instead of just the one she was now forced to do. And if he did that…
If he did that, then Shizuru would make good on her threat also, and get herself assigned to Natsuki’s class to re-do her school years also. As if it wasn’t enough that the older girl had cheerfully but inescapably tutored, badgered and dragged Natsuki through enough studies during the summer to earn enough extra credit to pacify the school board in terms of those first two years.
Natsuki sighed and closed her eyes.
She wasn’t even sure what she had wanted to do during the summer anyway… get some long overdue rest after her long years of fighting, certainly, but specifically? One part of her had wanted some solitude to sort out her feelings about the past year, her friends, what to do with her life from now on, and most importantly… sort out her feelings for the older girl. The other part of Natsuki had looked forward to the possibility of convincing Shizuru to go away with her, someplace far away from Fuuka, just the two of them. Now that thought was quite frightening for some reason, especially due to the pang of intense longing that the thought still brought to Natsuki.
As things were they had spent almost every waking moment of the summer together, but almost never alone, and always, _always_ while Natsuki was supposed to cram her head with more information than it was made for. Damn, being a lone vigilante on a crusade against a corrupt and evil organisation was much, much easier than this. She’d rather take dodging bullets and jumping cars with her motorcycle any day.
Natsuki really wanted a vacation.
A shadow fell across her face and with some distant amazement Natsuki realised that she instinctively knew who the shadow belonged to as her body tensed up and a strange shiver raced down her spine.
“Ara, did I wake you?” The warm, melodious voice and the lilting Kyoto dialect washed over Natsuki with a sense of inevitability. Of course she had been right. Of course it was…
“Shizuru.”
Shizuru was leaning over Natsuki, just that tiny bit closer and crossing the line from friendliness to hinting at something intimate. Natsuki was not surprised. For almost as long as they had known one another, Shizuru had always been physically affectionate with Natsuki, and Natsuki, who would never have allowed that from anyone else, had accepted that. But there had always been a certain tiny, almost indefinable, distance Shizuru never crossed, a polite line that kept Natsuki from considerations she was not ready for.
When the horrifying events had forced Shizuru’s secret love for Natsuki into the open, Shizuru had drawn back completely. Although she withheld nothing in words or actions, she had not attempted to touch Natsuki at all, not even in the most innocent of ways until the end. The look of stark pain and hurt in those almost blood-red brown eyes still haunted Natsuki’s dreams, one of many things related to the other woman that would make the tough former vigilante wake from her dreams in a cold sweat and with a silent scream clawing at her throat.
The knowledge hung heavily on Natsuki that with one instinctive flinch and one single word, she, Kuga Natsuki, had broken the woman that embodied everything that Natsuki admired but would never hope to aspire to. No, not only broken, but utterly shattered her.
Shizuru, the strong, graceful and noble woman that had faced the storm that was upon them all with dignified calm, had been driven insane by Natsuki’s perceived rejection and her own guilt. And she had proven the unending depth of her love when she, in a twisted attempt to protect Natsuki, had damned herself with blood and death to keep Natsuki safe.
The memory of what had been done, and the very real possibility that somewhere, someday that same darkness could be brought forth once more as Shizuru truly would not hesitate to do anything for Natsuki’s sake, was like a roiling black cloud in the back of Natsuki’s mind that she dared not dwell to closely on or she would be brought to her knees vomiting. God only knew what it would do to Shizuru.
Natsuki had refused to investigate whether or not Shizuru’s rampage had been erased like so much else that night, opting to live with the belief instead of a solid fact even though it was usually against her nature. She never brought the subject up with Shizuru, and the other woman had not spoken of the events since the night she weeping had asked for Natsuki’s forgiveness over and over.
As well as she had been able at the time, with the world coming apart around them and Natsuki having to lead all of them into battle, Natsuki had tried to tell Shizuru that she accepted her emotions, accepted Shizuru, and that Shizuru had a claim on Natsuki’s own heart that could not be denied. Whatever else had been the outcome of that night, Natsuki no longer held back, or at least not as much.
Natsuki had lived in a world of being virtually untouchable, the piercing intensity of her gaze and the dangerous and unapproachable aura she emitted kept people at a distance, admiring her perhaps, respecting her perhaps, but also just enough afraid of her to not venture near enough to be noticed. It was taking time to get used to Shizuru permanently fixed to her side, draped over her shoulder or in a death-grip around her neck, but Natsuki was getting there.
And it felt rather… nice, really.
“I wasn’t asleep. I was just… thinking.” Natsuki smiled a little as she looked up at the woman still leaning over her. Her eyes locked on this vision and she found herself staring helplessly.
Reflected sunlight was casting a surreal glow over Shizuru’s face, and the way she leaned over Natsuki… it was just like… Natsuki’s heart began thundering in her chest and a ball of ice formed in the pit of her stomach. The image came to her unbidden…
The light of the full moon bathed the room through the window, undoubtedly casting their silhouettes in sharp relief against the shoji, turned Shizuru’s smooth, flawless skin into alabaster porcelain and her lips into a red colour almost matching her eyes as she leaned down towards Natsuki with parted lips and desire in her eyes…
The panic flashed through Natsuki like a tidal wave, and it took all of her self-control to bite down so that one forbidden word that Natsuki could not, would not ever utter again to Shizuru would not escape her lips in a shrill cry. The red eyes watching her narrowed in concern.
“What are you thinking, Natsuki?” The low voice was filled with loving concern, and made Natsuki feel almost ill with guilt and shame. She tried to summon up an answer, any answer, that would not be a lie and yet not the truth either… she could not lie to Shizuru, but she could not hurt her with the truth either.
Her salvation came in the form of voices shouting her name. Two voices to be exact.
“NATSUKI!”
Shizuru and Natsuki instinctively drew apart a little, startled, just enough for a black-haired bundle to barrel in between them and unceremoniously throw them both to the ground. A somewhat larger, more orange coloured, bundle enthusiastically joined in a breath later.
“Mai, Mikoto…” Natsuki gasped out, identifying the people rather effectively strangling her. “…it’s nice to be loved… but please…” She tried to pull her face back up from a rather inappropriate close-up introduction to Mai’s ample bosom. “…let me breathe!”
With a soft giggle the crushing vice that had been Tokiha Mai withdrew, but Mikoto still had a good grip on Natsuki and was bouncing, squealing the older girl’s name over and over. Natsuki gave in and patted the dark head awkwardly.
“Where have you been, Natsuki? We’ve missed you.” Mai was clearly amused and completely unrepentant. Natsuki had half-expected Mai to apologise or at the very least tell Mikoto to let her up, but instead when Mai apologised, it wasn’t to her.
“President, err, um, Fujino-san! I’m so sorry… did we hurt you?”
From her prone and still Mikoto-covered position Natsuki saw Mai reach over to offer Shizuru some help back up while Shizuru, calm and poised as usual, merely smiled a bit and got up as if being barrelled to the ground by an overly energetic fourteen-year-old was an everyday occurrence.
Shizuru never had the chance to reply as Mikoto suddenly shot up from her death-grip on Natsuki to cast an intense yellow-eyed stare at Shizuru. Then the girl flew from Natsuki to envelop Shizuru in her usual trademark bear hug, nearly toppling the startled blonde in the process. “Shizuru!”
Natsuki smiled at the startled expression on Shizuru’s face, and felt, not for the first time, a wave of honest gratitude towards Mikoto and her immense capacity to love easily and strongly. Natsuki did not doubt that Mikoto and Shizuru had not exchanged more than perhaps two words during all that had gone down in the previous school year, and knew well that Shizuru’s involvement with the other girls marked with the sign of the HiME had been restricted to Yukino-san and herself, that she had at most seen the others when they were in Natsuki’s company.
With the exception of Nao, of course, but the events with Nao and Yukino were things Natsuki knew still plagued Shizuru greatly. Natsuki desperately wished there was something, anything, she could do to mend Shizuru’s relationship at least with Yukino and her Haruka… Shizuru had liked both girls a great deal, even respected them in her own way, and to know that even now Yukino’s eyes would show fear if she saw her former council leader was a cause for continued sorrow and guilt where Shizuru already had so much to carry.
So Natsuki was grateful for Mikoto now, for including the other woman in their circle of close-knit friends even though there was no real reason for the impulsive girl to do so. She also felt a bit envious, wishing she could have the same ability to forgive, forget and love so easily.
This time Mai did gasp and reach for Mikoto slightly. “I apologise, Fujino-san… we were just surprised to see you, and, um, we have been looking for Natsuki…”
Shizuru waved the apology, as well as the hands reaching out to pull at Mikoto, away, smiling beatifically as she hugged the little girl back. “I am pleased to see you again too… Miko-chin.”
Natsuki wondered briefly if it was a sign of adulthood to refer to the unruly and innocent cat-like girl by the nickname Miko-chin, as the only others she knew called Mikoto that was their teacher and fellow HiME Midori and the school doctor Yohko. Knowing those two though, probably not… Midori was still claiming to be seventeen after all, even though everyone knew she had been a classmate of the twenty-five year old Yohko.
The appearance of a pet-name apparently pleased Mikoto who laughed in delight and hugged Shizuru with renewed enthusiasm. Mai and Natsuki both grinned at the sight, Mai, apparently relieved that Mikoto’s burst of affection was not bothering Shizuru, settled down to watch benignly instead.
“I’m surprised to see you here today, Fujino-san… are you here to see Natsuki off to class on the first day of the school year?” Mai brushed some grass off her skirt and, most likely absently, sorted Natsuki’s discarded school books in a neat pile between them as she made polite but genuinely interested conversation with her former senior.
“Shizuru is fine, Tokiha-san.”
Mai shared a mischievously amused look with Natsuki before answering. “Then you can call me Mai as well… Shizuru-san.”
Natsuki’s snort of laughter was none too elegant, but she didn’t care. She knew what Mai had been thinking at Shizuru’s sudden familiarity, and yes, Natsuki too remembered their little, if long overdue, ceasing of formalities on a very small boat out on the water a dark night.
Natsuki also remembered rather vividly what had happened later that night, how she had ended up in her tiny bikini by the edge of the road posing in an extremely exaggerated ‘sexy’ pose on Mai’s insistence so that the two of them and Mikoto would be able to hitchhike back to town… only to find to Natsuki’s utter mortification that none other than Shizuru was seated in the only car that happened to come along.
She simply must remember to pay Mai back for that particular indignity sometime, and in spades, Natsuki reminded herself. An odd thought hit her then… the expression on Shizuru’s face… and her comment about how seeing Natsuki like that had been well worth going out looking for them in the middle of the night… Natsuki found herself wondering if maybe Shizuru had been thinking of her as she went back to bed that night. If just maybe Shizuru had thought of Natsuki and…
Natsuki’s sudden blush was so fierce that even though she instantly tried to cover it by letting her long black hair fall in her face as she slowly sat up, she found both Mai and Shizuru looking at her with some surprise once she had recovered her composure enough to face them.
Once more Mikoto came to Natsuki’s rescue as the girl turned innocently curious golden eyes upon Shizuru and poked the distracted woman in the chest several times.
“Shizuru’s chest is as big as Mai’s!” Mikoto then declared in a loud and surprised voice, completely ignorant to the blushing of all three of her companions. She was just about to test her statement further, this time with both hands, when Natsuki darted forward and snatched her away by a firm grip at the back of her collar.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing, you, you, you breast-fixated alley cat?!” Natsuki hissed, once more blushing furiously, and pushed Mikoto into Mai’s waiting arms. “Your playmate is over there!”
“Honestly!” Natsuki groused to Mai while trying her best not to pout as Shizuru was already watching her with an all too amused and pleased expression on her face. “I thought you were going to do something about that tendency of hers!”
Mikoto happily made herself comfortable lying in Mai’s arms, and the older girl automatically arranged herself in a position better to hold her in, revealing to anyone that cared to look that it was a position they often found themselves in. Mai wrapped her arms around Mikoto and absently played with her hair while Mikoto looked up at her older room-mate with obvious adoration.
“Nope. I wouldn’t change Mikoto for the world.” Mai’s voice was tender as she gazed down at the girl in her lap. “She is perfect just the way she is.”
“I quite understand.” Shizuru smiled and moved just enough to lean up against Natsuki and sling her arm around the flustered dark-haired girl. Any comment Natsuki might have been about to make died a swift and tongue-tied death as blood-red eyes met dark green. Natsuki swallowed hard and tried to remember what she had been doing.
The peaceful scene was intruded upon by the barely audible clicking of a camera shutter and the sound of familiar giggling.
“What a sweet scene!” The tomboyish brunette smirked insolently behind her tiny camera as she took a few additional pictures. “Were you perhaps planning to skip class today to go on a double-date picnic in the park?” Something about the grin on the girl’s face suggested that if the answer was yes, then the double-date would wind up a triple instead.
The gentle-looking girl at the brunette’s side stifled her giggles to wave at the group. “Mai, Mikoto, we were looking for you.” Her blue eyes moved over to where Natsuki still sat with Shizuru’s arm around her. “You too, Kuga-kun… we’re in the same class this year, and you probably don’t want to start the year being tardy.”
“Chie! Aoi!” Mikoto exclaimed happily, causing the brunette to lean down and tickle her sides a little.
“The uniform of the senior school looks good on you, Mikoto-chan.” Chie praised before flicking her short bangs back slightly in a theatrical way.
“Your new look isn’t half bad either, Harada.” Natsuki said with just a touch of feigned sarcasm. “Did you get contact lenses?”
“You’re so observant, Kuga.” Chie’s grin made it clear they were still just playing. “But you know, I’m more popular with the girls this way.”
The wink was interrupted by Aoi reaching up to pinch Chie’s ear. “Behave yourself Chie.” To Natsuki she added briefly. “She only needs the glasses when she is reading, so she will probably still wear them in class. But we need to get going.”
Aoi turned to face Shizuru with a polite bow. “My apologies for the intrusion, Fujino-sensei.”
“Fujino…”
“…-sensei?”
Mai and Natsuki spoke together, turning surprised looks at Shizuru, although it was Chie that answered them.
“What, you didn’t know? The board of directors specifically asked Fujino-sensei to become the new principal of Fuuka academy after graduation. Suzushiro-san has also been called in from what I hear.”
“I am pleased that Haruka-san accepted my invitation. Her passion for Fuuka academy is unrivalled.” Shizuru stated calmly and then gently disentangled herself from Natsuki with some regret. “I suppose I must be going now if I am to hold the welcoming speech to the students.” She sighed and looked forlornly at Natsuki until she appeared to have an idea. “Make sure you sit far in the front rows Natsuki, so I can see you properly.”
“It is almost time now, girls… don’t be late.” Shizuru waved at them ignoring the stunned looks she left behind and, with a small toss of her dark blonde hair, set off to hold the traditional welcoming speech as Fuuka academy’s new principal.
After a moment of stunned silence the remaining girls scrambled to their feet and hurried after Shizuru at a respectful distance, chattering excitedly, or in Natsuki’s case dazedly, to bring everyone up to speed about everyone and everything else. The conversation continued in more hushed tones during the welcome address, the girls only falling completely silent to hear selected parts of Shizuru’s speech.
Natsuki found to her embarrassment that her friends had taken Shizuru’s request to heart, and, while not managing to find seats for them all very far in the front, at least having managed to put Natsuki in a seat at the middle isle so Shizuru could clearly see her. In fact the newly declared principal of Fuuka academy took a moment to wave at Natsuki before beginning her speech, much to the other girls’ delight and Natsuki’s mortification.
By the time the group exited the building, everyone was fairly clear on what had happened to everyone else during the summer, including Natsuki having been bogged down with studies at Shizuru’s mansion. That particular tidbit of information had Chie and Aoi sigh theatrically and make a few, in Natsuki’s opinion inappropriate, comments about Natsuki’s good fortune. Shizuru may have graduated the school but she was still rated as the single most desirable woman on campus among both males and females, which Chie so helpfully reminded Natsuki.
Himeno Fumi, the former HiME and maidservant of the school’s previous owner, Kazahana Mashiro, had formally inherited the school from the ancient child as she returned to the darkness together with the manipulative Nagi. The former maid had good intentions but no knowledge of how to run a school and was quite aware of that fact, so it was she who had approached Shizuru and offered the position as principal for the school. Shizuru in turn had requested that Suzushiro Haruka, her former classmate and colleague in the school’s student council, be brought in as well. Apparently Haruka, with her love for the school so strong that her family had donated money to the restoration of the immense damages done during the secret battles, had accepted despite the fact that she would once again have to answer to her imagined rival Shizuru.
The girls’ old friend and fellow HiME Midori had finally completed her long-awaited thesis, but things had not gone well with her beloved professor. When it turned out the man was married and with several children when Midori had accidentally answered his phone one time as his wife called, Midori had called things off and returned to Fuuka and her best friend, Yohko. It did not take long before the school had approached her with an offer to re-instate her as a full-time teacher and this time Midori accepted whole-heartedly, determined to do right by her students.
Mikoto’s older brother Reito had received and accepted a job offer overseas, but still kept in contact with his little sister through letters and the occasional phone call. Despite his flirtatious comments once the dark lord had been expunged from him, Reito himself had never really had any romantic intentions towards Mai. In fact most of his flirting was because of Tate Yuichi rather than Mai herself, and since she had no particular feelings towards him either other than as the brother of her Mikoto, they had managed to part on friendly terms. Mai’s own brother Takumi, and his constant companion Akira, had finally recovered enough from his operation to return to Japan and to Fuuka, to Mai’s great joy and relief.
Tate had spent a fair part of the summer trying to persuade Mai to date him. For the first week or so after everything had returned to what passed for normal in Fuuka, Mai had been trying to accommodate him, go out with him, spent time doing the things a couple beginning to date might do, and truly attempted to muster up the affection for him that she had believed she held. Eventually it became clear to Mai that Tate had been a fair bit of self-delusion on her part, a form of denial when she could not accept what her true feelings were. Tate had been… just a convenient excuse, as terrible as it felt to acknowledge. She had tried to break it to him gently at first, and then, when he would not get the hint and cease his attempts at wooing her, more directly. As bad as Mai felt for hurting someone that had been a friend when she needed one, she knew they both needed the truth.
And Mai’s truth was that despite her fancy words, even then spoken only for the purpose of keeping her true ‘precious one’ from harm, Mai knew that Tate and her feelings for him had never been the source for her HiME powers. It had been such a transparent lie, too… no other HiME had ever been able to retain her powers should her precious one have been killed, so why should Mai be the only one that would retain hers with only the memory of a loved one?
Tate also needed to learn his own truth, about his real feelings for little Shiho, and not get confused by what teenage hormones and physical attraction might tell him. The irony was that for most part, Mai and Tate couldn’t even stand one another, and now Mai couldn’t begin to understand how things had become so complicated.
Of course no-one could have been happier than Mikoto and Shiho to hear that their respective rivals for the attention of their beloved ones where finally gone.
No-one knew exactly the details since the school’s self-proclaimed ‘reliable source of gossip’ was surprisingly sparing with the details of her own life, but Chie and Aoi had lived together ever since the dorms had been destroyed and their respective families had summoned them back home. As the summer was nearing its end, Chie and Aoi had returned, Chie with her new flashier look and with a digital camera in place of her old phone, and they had managed to get assigned each other as roommates in the new dorms. The two of them and Tate Yuichi were elected to join Kikukawa Yukino in the new student council even, although the new student council would not have quite the same kind of power as the old one had now that the school was going to have a proper adult administrative section and no longer be ruled by the students.
Of those remaining on the list of HiME, Higurashi Akane had finally gotten her family’s approval to get engaged to her boyfriend, and the two of them had transferred schools during the summer to better pursue the education he needed for the profession and solid employment Akane’s father demanded before he would agree to let his little girl get married. The former nun Sanada Yukariko had finally given up the church and married the school’s former art teacher, causing quite a scandal as the couple was expecting their first child much too soon to have been conceived after the two had actually married.
For as long as she had been able to, Yukariko had tried to cover for three other HiME, hiding them away in her church as nuns to provide them with a place to stay. Unfortunately church representatives had visited during the summer, and neither young Yuuki Nao nor the android known as Miyu Greer could believably pass for devout girls even had the representatives not already checked their backgrounds.
Miyu and Nao would easily get rooms at the dorms normally, but in the case of Miyu she had little Alyssa to consider, and officially Alyssa Searrs was now an orphan and thus easy prey for whatever remnants of the SEARRS organisation to come and claim. For now hiding Alyssa seemed the best option, although Miyu would surely fight and defeat anyone that tried to lay a finger on her Alyssa-ojousama. Nao had her mother, who after all these years had finally woken from her coma, and although Nao tried hard to find work where she could to support them, and got as much help as Mai and Aoi could afford, respectively, she had just enough to keep the both of them fed and clothed. Nao could not afford someplace to stay for herself and her mother, and her mother was far too frail to hope to work. Nao could officially stay at the dorms but her mother could not, and so the two of them were currently staying with Chie and Aoi, while Alyssa and Miyu stayed with Mai and Mikoto.
They had all been searching for Natsuki for some time, especially since the discovery that Natsuki had been assigned a single-room dorm down the hall from them, yet no-one had seen nor heard from Natsuki all summer. Apparently the girls had come up with the idea that if Natsuki was not using her dorm room herself, perhaps she could lend it to Nao and her mother for the time being, but Mai had started getting concerned when days passed and there was no sign of Natsuki and, which was discovered thanks to Mikoto climbing balconies to find out, not a single sign of anyone staying in the room assigned her.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called… I got so caught up in… things, that I didn’t realize how much time passed.” Natsuki apologised uneasily, admitting to Mai and Mikoto that she had been spending the entire summer trying to catch up to everyone else academically was one thing, but she didn’t want to say something like that in front of Chie and Aoi, no matter how friendly they were being. Unfortunately that meant that Chie and Aoi assumed she had meant something more romantic with Shizuru, and supplied the usual sighs and exclamations of envy. Natsuki sighed quietly.
“I didn’t even know I had a dorm room assigned.” She frowned unhappily. Did it mean that Shizuru had arranged it for Natsuki, being the principal now and everything? And if she had, did that mean that Shizuru wanted Natsuki to move out? The moving in had happened gradually and, at least on Natsuki’s part, unintentionally… although the point of no return had been Nao and Shizuru demolishing the entire building in their battle, and after everything had returned to something resembling normal Natsuki had just been reluctant to leave Shizuru alone.
What if this was Shizuru’s way of politely saying that enough was enough? The other woman seemed pleased with Natsuki’s presence in her home, but what if Natsuki had just been ignorant… again?
“I…” Natsuki hesitated. “I need to check some things first, but if I’m not going to use the room myself, then of course Nao and her mother can have it.” Another thought hit Natsuki then. “In fact… I might be able to do something more for Nao and, well, Alyssa as well. I have to look into some things before I know for certain, but I should be able to help some at least.”
The group was chatting eagerly as they moved across the schoolyard heading towards the newly restored cafeteria, none of them thinking to look up at the towers and spires of the buildings around them, or up at the Fuuka Mountain as it cradled the entire school on its slopes.
No-one saw the brief flash of red light near the mountain’s peak.
No-one saw the shadowed figure crouching on the restored dome of the library building. No-one among them sensed the eyes that followed their path with such unfettered hatred.
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