This is a request from Korwell
It's rated for violence, language, and sexual content that exists in later chapters
This occurs while Natuski and company are still in school in the Mai-Otome storyline, thus pre-storyline
Enjoy
Autumn crispness surrounded her, evident in the softly burnt leaves and the sunset that reflected the shades of foliage burning them into Natsuki's green eyes. There was no warmth left at Guaderobe academy, time had stolen summers sunny days and the humidity had vanished under the same pretences. The air was chilled but only under the sight of approaching twilight, the little lukewarm air that remained would vanish with the sinking of the sun.
Watching the sunset seemed like an overly symbolic thing for someone like her to do, she wasn't an artist nor a poet and her ability to explain the beauty of such a simple thing was limited. At one time, she might dream of sharing a sunset with someone but at the moment, she knew she wasn't running out of sunsets any time soon. So she sat patiently on the bench and waited for another passing introduction to night.
"Krugar-san, correct?"
Not trusting only her ears, she whipped her head around to find the speaker of this question.
Red-brown eyes that mimicked flawlessly the hue of the leaves that framed them. Or perhaps the leaves were the imitation. An upperclassman, appearing utmost graceful, stood smiling with closed eyes.
"Y-yes." She answered, a deplorable stutter betraying her usual stony confidence. The brusque interruption had jarred her from her silent revelry but the feeling of relaxation seemed to return up the upperclassman's approach to the end of the bench.
"Does someone need me?"
She couldn't think of anyone on campus who could be dying for her attention enough so to send a very proper looking upperclassman to fetch her. Mai was out today, presumably walking in the woods again. This upperclassman stood just beyond the sun's reach, where the shadows of twilight had saturated the pathway.
"No, I was just walking; would it trouble you if I sat here?"
Natsuki stood, choosing rather to skip the sunset then engage in time-consuming palaver.
As if reading her mind the girl said, "Don't worry; just pretend I'm not here."
The underclassman blinked a few times, impressed by her accurate intuition but stayed standing insistent on avoiding contacts with other humans. "I have to get going anyway, enjoy the sunset."
She watched her feet scuff across the path as she walked away; it was a self-induced loneliness and a vow she'd taken to watch the sunset only by herself until she'd achieved strength.
In her lapse of attentiveness, she ran into a body. Looking up she found a particularly foreboding group of girls, near eight in total, staring down at her.
"Have you seen Shizuru-oneesama ?"
The speaker, and presumably leader, was a gossipy looking girl with an accusing lilt in her voice as if Natsuki had recently kidnapped the person they were looking for. It took a second for their suspicion to register and when it did she looked over her shoulder to where the upperclassman had been seconds before, all that remained was a lone bench.
"Was she over there?" This time it wasn't the gossipy girl but one of her cohorts whose tone was so nasty the underclassman decided against answering. It didn't go over too well; one of the taller girls seized her by the collar. "Hey runt! We asked if she had been over there!" She was pulled to a point where she was almost off the ground then slapped across the face; the painful stinging just caused determined anger to creep into her eyes. With a swift kick to her attacker's stomach, she pulled away and yelled, "What the hell do you think you're doing? It's none of your goddamn business! Who even said I knew that bitch you idiots?!" The injured girl withdrew swearing into the group, the leader looked at her vehemently, "Little bitch!" A fist connected to her jaw and she lost her balance with the stars that clouded her eyes, she covered her head with her hands knowing she was now vulnerable to the onslaught that would no doubt ensue.
"Please step away from her."
A recognizably soft voice, she looked up passed the faces of vicious schoolmates to the upperclassman, Shizuru she guessed. The group parted on command, turning from vicious attackers into obedient puppies, the leader tried to argue, "But Shizuru-oneesama she insulted you!" She whined pathetically.
Shizuru simply walked up to her lying on the ground and offered her hand. Natsuki scowled and stood up by herself, not willing to give this Shizuru person the satisfaction of being her rescuer.
She wiped a trickle of blood from an already swollen lip and looked at the group that had attacked her so unprovoked. "You all go to hell."
She turned around coolly and walked back to her dorm.
Haruka's body made a three-foot deep crater in the outside wall off the P.E equipment building. Shizuru stood victoriously, a halberd thrown over her left shoulder that followed the line of her extended right arm whose hand grabbed the weapon right before the start of the blade.
Natsuki watched impressed, her inattentive admiration earned a hard blow to her shoulder by her sparring partner. She spun from the force and hit the ground gracelessly a few feet away. Her partner, Mai Tokiha, pulled her to her feet. "Pay attention! I don't wanna break your face."
Natsuki grabbed her attention back from the upperclassman and nodded, apparently not fast enough to bypass notice. "Oh are we staring at Shizuru-sama?" Natsuki opened her mouth to argue but Mai spoke again. "Can't blame you, she's beautiful isn't she? Apparently, she's head of the Trios and the pearl class. I heard she's already landed a spot on in the five columns even though she doesn't graduate for another five months. The graceful Shizuru Viola-sama." Mai looked almost dreamily across the gym field, "Look who's staring now?" Natsuki mumbled grumpily and reassumed her battle position. "Some say she could even beat the headmaster." Natsuki looked at the unrealistically softened upperclassman who was smiling while the recently revived Haruka Armitage begged her for a rematch while accusing her of cheating and pointing out her flaws, all at the same time. After a second she felt someone looking at her and turned to see, catching Natsuki's eye, she waved. Natsuki looked away with a half-angry half-sheepish blush invading her cheeks. Mai looked between the two of them.
"Do you know her?"
Natsuki rolled her eyes, "Why would I know such an annoying person?"
In what seemed to be direct defiance of her previous statement, Shizuru walked up and offered her hand as if they were at a ball. It quickly attracted the attention of almost the entire class, including Haruka who stopped dead in the middle of her sentence.
The older girl bowed her head slightly and asked, "May I have this dance?"