魔女HiME
Witch-type Highly-advanced Materializing Equipment
Mai-MAJO
P R E L U D E
THEN…
The shadows within a lone corner of the enclosed space seemed to twitch and swirl about on their own. It could have been the light fixture, hanging above, that occasionally flickered on and off; made so by the quick flashes of lightning and booming thunder that accompanied the heavy rain of the raging storm outside. Forecasted to be a rather light and mundane shower by the local reports, it instead brought much more than just the pounding sheets of water that fell from the sky in near waves. The sound of it striking the strong, aged brick of the building was loud enough to create a constant, droning drumming noise that echoed throughout structure. Bright patches illumination flashed across the dark sky as strikes of lightning silhouetted the thick rivulets of water that poured down the large bay windows eerily; casting a strange, otherworldly opaqueness across the back walls on the room. It was an unending torrent of heaviness that fell from the Earth's sky; a heaviness that more than matched the emotions of the only two individuals within the room.
"So," a less than serious voice intoned over the most recent crack of thunder. "I assume that it's time to step up our plans, right?"
Across the wide space of the room, behind a heavy oak desk, a shadowy figure – made visible by only the brief, harsh brilliance that flared outside the window – gave a curt, but confident nod.
"Yes."
The darkness in the corner of the room where the first voice had come from seemed to seethe and move about. In the pale, sporadic light offered by the overhead fixtures, it made the shadows in that small space seem very much alive. But if there were any hint of it disturbing the one standing behind the desk, no sign was given.
"You know," the lilting tone spoke out almost playfully. "What we're doing goes against all the rules. Aren't you at least worried about a…reprisal?"
The last word spoken by the hidden figure carried an almost hostile edge to it.
"No," the other person returned in a calm and reassured voice, apparently ignoring the way that last word was spoken. "I've waited too long for this moment…we have waited too long for this moment. If we're going to act, it definitely should be now. I don't think we'll have another chance like this one."
The dark figure draped in the writhing shadows seemed to shrug its shoulders nonchalantly before saying, "Well, whatever. Just remember that when things start to happen. We can't hide our motives forever and the trash that runs things around here might not be too keen on what we want to do. Afterall, they do have plans of their own, you know and I don't think they will take too kindly to us playing with their toys."
The shadowy form paused only for a moment to let their words sink in, and then finished with, "I suppose I'll be going now. I'm you sure you have your own schemes to set up. As for me, I think that I might pay her a visit and then – "
The words were interrupted by three hard knocks on the door and it being pushed open abruptly.
"I'm sorry to bother you with this, but the power in…in…" the girl who had just walked about seven or so steps in paused almost immediately as eyes fell upon what was directly before her. The words that she was going to speak lay frozen on her lips. The door was directly facing to the corner in which the shadowy figure stood. Her eyes were widened frightfully on the darkest spot of the room, the one that almost seemed to be alive. The lips that had been so alive before were now twitching to deliver stuttered and broken words. "Wha… What's going on?! W-What is that?!"
Raising a shadow-swathed arm up, the shape within the darkness grinned mischievously as it flexed its fingers.
"Should I?"
Walking out from behind the desk, the other person in the room shook her head lightly. Striding almost casually across the intervening space, her unflinching gaze never leaving the girl's horrified face. Stopping directly in front of the frightened female, she only said, "No, please leave this to me."
The figure within the shadows dropped their arm dejectedly.
"Awww, you never let me have any fun. Oh well."
With that, both the dark contour of the person who had been standing there and the seeming living darkness itself faded from the corner. Almost immediately, the girl's hands flew up to her mouth in unhidden terror as her brown eyes widened in fear. Her face paled considerably as she twitched about with uncertainty and panic, too shaken by what she had just seen to notice the feminine outline standing before her.
"Please forgive me," the low, but stern voice stated sorrowfully. "But I can't allow anyone else to learn of what I'm planning."
At that moment, the other girl snapped from her stupor and regarded the female before her with even wider eyes. They were full of surprise at not just what the figure had just said to her, but who it was who had said it. There were a dozen other things that she should have done, that she could have said if her mind hadn't gone numb with fear and disbelief.
"B-But… But…why…?"
The female figure in front of the girl said nothing as she raised an arm up to her side. A small and beautiful, deep-red object adorning her left earlobe shimmered faintly in the weak, flickering illumination of the room as lightning flashed outside the oversized bay window. Her face showed nothing but regret as she quietly uttered, "I will make this painless as possible."
The terror-stricken female's eyebrows practically climbed up her forehead as panic turned immediately into senseless fear. A scream attempted to escape from the girl's mouth as she turned and made a hasty, erratic run for the open door. Behind her, there was a bright, almost blinding flash of reddish-blue light. Then something solid and strong struck her from behind. It was a force so powerful, so sudden, that the girl wasn't the only thing it affected. Without warning, the door in front of her slammed shut as she fell down hard to the floor in an unconscious heap and then, all within the room was silent as the rumble of thunder and the heavy downpour continued outside.
-OOO-
NOW…
The moon hung high above in the cloudless sky, its round fullness capturing the light of an unseen sun and radiating its weakened illumination gloomily on the strangled mess of high-rise metal, concrete and glass. Even at the late hour, the grind and bustle of the big city did not accede to the darkness of nightfall; people scurrying about on unknown chores and tasks, cars polluting the air with their noxious fumes as they ferried individuals and families from place to place. Unsurprisingly, fear and worry didn't eclipse into any of their minds. Besides, why worry about what could happen when you should be worrying about what was happening?
The thin, misty fog rolling in from the west across San Francisco Bay peppered everything in a dull, sometimes irritating haze that forced the busy residents of the city to become much more cautionary than they wished to be. Though it wasn't thick enough to be a true problem or obscure a person's vision, the cold touch of the slow-moving fog from the Pacific Ocean was still more than enough to blanket area around the warehouse and wharf district with thin wisps of nearly transparent mist. To anyone else's eyes, any normal passerby or pedestrian who had lived in the City by the Bay for a good length of time, the sight was far from strange. Afterall, fog and late night haze were a fact of life in San Francisco.
But somehow, this was different…especially to an eye used to seeing past the thin veil of normalcy that passed for the world. To a much keener sight than the ordinary, everydayers of the city possessed, much strangeness could be found hidden in such obscurity. Things not bound to the physical world; things that intruded upon that world without pity or remorse. Eyes that could see such things were a rarity among all the people who existed on the Earth. Very few who possessed the insight that they granted set foot into the world of normalcy unless it was warranted; unless it was truly needed. The dark-clad girl who sat idle on the glossy, black body of her Ducati DRIV was one such person. And she knew full well, in short order most likely, that she would be needed.
"Bored?" a cool, level voice teased from just beside her.
The girl straddling the heavy, Italian built motorcycle shifted slightly but didn't say anything.
"Ah, I see," the voice continued, tone becoming chiding to a small degree. "You're ignoring me. Well, I guess I should've expected that. You were never known to be a team player. Were you?"
The small sigh released by Kuga Natsuki was muffled by the black with red trim helmet that encased her head, as were her cold words as she annoyingly replied, "And that's probably why we get along so well. Now for the last time Kitada…shut up."
The voice belonging to Kitada went silent and Natsuki returned her attention to the series of dark outlines that represented warehouses that lay just before her. Time seemed to stretch on and on. How long had she been sitting there on her motorcycle in the miserable San Francisco weather? How long had it been since she left that cruddy motel room that she had set herself up in? How many days had she been absent from the academy because of this assignment? How much of a backlog of schoolwork did she really need? The last thing she needed was to be ridden by Sakomizu-sensei about her attendance and failing grades again. Well, that among other things. Behind the opaque visor of her helmet, Natsuki's green eyes closed wearily as she let loose another sigh.
"Sighing won't help the time to pass by any quicker, Natsuki. Besides, maybe it's better that the target didn't show up. As reckless as you are half the time, that 'I-don't-need-anyone-else's-help-I-can-do-it myself' attitude of yours will only get you into trouble anyway. Won't it?"
A low groan escaped from helmeted girl's compressed lips.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?!"
A translucent figure of a teenaged girl with long, flowing black hair and narrow, cream-in-coffee colored eyes wearing a variation of the tight-fitting body suit that she had on suddenly appeared before Natsuki. Her long arms were folded oppressively across a moderately-sized chest and the expression on her youthful face spoke of another lecture that Natsuki could do without.
"Yes," Kitada began earnestly as she regarded the motorcycle-straddling girl coolly. "You did. But we both know just how stubborn I am. And besides, how many times has that actually worked anyway, you telling me to shut up?"
Behind the dark visor, Natsuki's eyes narrowed hotly.
"Never," she stated coldly, and then added. "But it doesn't hurt to try. And why are you still dressing up like me?! Didn't I tell you the last time not to do it anymore?!"
Kitada's actual expression of seriousness didn't change, but a noticeable crooking along the left corner of her thin lips gave her mouth a sarcastic, smirk-like appearance. It was only adding to Natsuki's growing irritation.
"Yes, I think you did," she responded quickly to the helmeted girl's question while unfolding her arms to give an absent shrug. "Or at least I remember you saying something to that effect a while ago."
Natsuki did what she could to suppress the growl that was working its way up into her throat. Unconsciously, her gloved hands tightened on the handgrips of the Ducati.
"Then why the hell are you still wearing them?!"
The semi-transparent girl's growing grin was Cheshire Cat enough to send all manners of warning signals flashing through her head. A sudden thought eclipsed in Natsuki's mind, reddening her cheeks behind the dark-tinted visor of her helmet with both anger and embarrassment. Her emerald eyes would have narrowed even more, if it were possible. Abruptly, she found herself blustering, "Wait, you're not…! You had better not be materializing my underwear again, Kitada! I already told you not to mess with my special collection! Especially the lingerie! What are you, some kind of perverted panty thief?!"
Kitada's small mouth finished twisting up into an impish smile.
"Oh," she exclaimed innocently, ignoring Natsuki's comments about her odd tendencies with the helmeted girl's undergarments. "You mean the really frilly and skimpy ones that were a gift from Shizuru? The ones that you have laid out, I assume, for later on tonight? The purple ones? Hmmm. Isn't purple Fujino-san's favorite color? And aren't you two supposed to be reviewing a few of your new assignments together…alone? That makes me wonder. Just what kind of pervert are you?"
Her entire face flushing red behind the tinted visor, Natsuki angrily raised an arm from the handgrip of the motorcycle as her left eye began to twitch. Opening up her gloved hand, she stretched out her fingers and concentrated only for a second. There was a brief flash of light, and then something little, metallic and oddly shaped appeared there…spinning. Closing her hand around the object, Natsuki expertly gripped it and raised it up in Kitada's direction. It looked like a small gun; only where the chamber would be there was a sphere about half the weapon's total size. Her finger was poised on the trigger and the look in her green eyes was nothing but serious.
"SHUT UP!" Natsuki threatened. "I had NO intention of wearing ANY sort of lingerie to our meeting tonight! NOT that it's any of YOUR business if I did! Though I WASN'T going to! Shizuru just GAVE me those for my COLLECTION! That's all! That's it! There's no kind of ulterior motive behind it! NONE! Got that?! NONE!!!"
For a moment there was nothing but silence in the small space between two warehouses that they occupied. No sound could be heard other than the gentle swishing of the bay water as it sloshed against the one of the nearby pier's support beams. And then, out of nowhere, Kitada began to laugh; a laugh that was so hard that she had to close her eyes. It was a loud, exuberant cackle; the kind that was screaming out 'I know something that you don't' to Natsuki's already over-angry mind. The ghostly girl even went so far as to wrap her arms around her midsection as she continued to express amusement at the other straddling the motorcycle. Natsuki could feel the vein in her temple begin to pulse dangerously.
"And what's so damned funny?" she questioned through clenched teeth as her hand tightened on the oddly-shaped pistol gripping within it.
When the translucent girl could manage it, she opened up her light-brown eyes and said, "You! Because you OBVIOUSLY haven't heard ANY of the rumors going around the school about you and Shizuru!"
Behind the dark visor of the motorcycle helmet, Natsuki's face twisted into a curious and annoyed frown. But the materialized weapon in her hand never lowered.
"What rumors?"
Kitada did what she could to stifle her laughter before she responded. It didn't seem like she was trying very hard.
"Oh," she began in a voice of exaggerated seriousness, trying hard to mask the mirth and humor still lacing her tone. "Ju…Just the ones that…that Chie and Aoi have…have been spreading all over OrCHARD."
In a flurry of movement, Natsuki had raised both of her arms up to her head, gripped the helmet and ripped it off in one smooth motion. For the first time since she had left her dingy, should-be-condemned motel room; her long, dark-blue hair fell free past her shoulders and stirred in the mild, mist-laden breeze that was coming in off the bay. But as far as Natsuki was concerned, it could have been on fire for all she cared.
"What the hell have they been saying, Kitada?!" Natsuki nearly screamed as she raised the materialized weapon in the translucent girl's direction again. Her finger was teasing the trigger with serious consideration. "I'm not kidding anymore! Just what in the hell have those two been running around saying about me and Shizuru?!"
Kitada acted like the dark-blue haired girl wasn't pointing something that could actually harm her in her direction. She was just having too much fun to really care! Through the bond they shared, she could feel the anger and embarrassment that Natsuki felt. She could also feel, quite strongly, her serious desire to pull the trigger of her Element. The girl was actually willing to shoot her! Her own Phantom!
With a sigh, Kitada stopped laughing and folded her arms across her chest again. It was her greatest opinion that Kuga Natsuki really needed to learn how to loosen up. Not that the girl would. For as long as Kitada had been her Phantom, Natsuki had always been tightly wound. But it wasn't like she didn't have her reasons.
"Oh fine," the ghostly girl stated in a much more serious tone than before. "I'll tell you. Just point that thing some –"
Kitada's words stopped abruptly, head swinging around toward the warehouses behind her; cream-in-coffee colored eyes narrowing. Even with the bond that they shared, Natsuki had become very good at reading the Phantom's visible reactions to situation changes. Quickly hanging the helmet on one of the Ducati's handgrips, she pushed herself up and away from the ebon body of her motorcycle. Taking a few hurried steps to where Kitada was hovering, Natsuki materialized a second pistol the same way she had the first. Raising them both up before her, she regarded the other girl expectantly.
"Is it him," she asked coldly, her own green eyes falling upon the group of warehouses obscured by the dark haze surrounding the pier area. Though her mind was now fully on the business she had come there for, Natsuki made sure to file away what Kitada had told her about Chie and Aoi. If she couldn't manage to wrangle what the pair had said about her and Shizuru out of the Phantom after she was done, she would materialize her Elements and shoot it out of the both of them! Suzushiro and her Disciplinary Council rules be damned!
"Yes," she heard the voice of her Phantom say lowly, yet with a hint of anger. "It's him. And, apparently, he's not alone."
Natsuki's lips flattened into a thin line as she took a reluctant step forward, adjusting her grip on the two pistols. She pushed all other thoughts out of her head. Afterall, she had a job to do.
"Then let's get this over with," she returned icily, moving out past the immaterial visage of the hovering girl who was her Phantom. "Because I'm tired of chasing this idiot all around the world. Of course, the way I was made to understand it, he's one SHADE that's been worrying the SEERS Society a lot lately. The fools. How could they ever be worried about him?!"
Behind Natsuki, Kitada regarded her casually, as she strode away, for only a moment before wryly saying, "So I guess calling him a SHADE now is going to make things easier when you two come face-to-face? And when did the cold and icy lone wolf Kuga Natsuki suddenly become the perfect little MAJO for the SEERS Society? And have you forgotten what he did in Milan and Yorkshire?"
Natsuki's stride never slowed.
"I haven't," she threw out curtly over her left shoulder, continuing her solemn march toward the row of dark warehouses and completely ignoring Kitada's first and third questions. "But as long as they know the whereabouts of my mother…" Natsuki's grip tightened on the twin Elements as her green eyes locked coldly on the warehouses growing closer and closer. "…I'll do whatever it takes to get the information I need. Even if it means that I have to keep working for the very people I believe responsible for her disappearance."
Through the bond shared only between a MAJO and her Phantom, Kitada could feel Natsuki's frustration at being given the runaround by the higher-ups within the SEERS Society more than any other feeling or impression. Even the fact of a very difficult task, which was looming before her by mere minutes, was buried under that heavy avalanche of suspicion and worry. Her mother, a former MAJO herself before she performed the Ritual of Contract which passed on her abilities, powers and Kitada herself over to her daughter, had taken a position as one of the Society's top researchers within a secretive coalition of scientists called Watchtower. It was about a year or two after Natsuki herself had been inducted into Fuuka OrCHARD to be trained in the use of her newly acquired abilities as a MAJO that Kuga Saeko had become a member of the elusive group.
When she disappeared, it took Natsuki's current Seer, Sakomizu Kaiji, and nearly everyone within the SEERS Society to keep her from deserting the organization to go and search for her. And from that day onward, Natsuki became driven with only one goal – to find her mother. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore; friends, schooling, following what the SEERS Society would tell her to do…nothing. It was then that she had changed, becoming icy, serious-minded and almost completely closed away from the world itself with only Kitada being her confidant. For five of the past seven and a half months she had been like that, always preferring to do things on her own and never asking for assistance from any of the other MAJO within the SEERS Society. But that all seemed to change the day she met Fujino Shizuru.
"Kitada," Natsuki's voice rung out loudly over the dank murk that surrounded the warehouses sitting along the pier, "Get a move on! I don't want to screw this up! We have to nail him before he gets away! I'm sick of chasing this moron all over creation and back! I want this to end tonight!"
Kitada could feel Natsuki's anxiousness through the bond as it finally began to subdue her earlier aggravation about what the SEERS Society knew about her mother's disappearance. She could also feel her anticipation and, oddly enough, the small sense of apprehension that came along with it. Not that it should have been too surprising for Kitada to feel that, considering just who it was waiting within one of those shadowy warehouses. A friend who had wanted to become more than just a friend. A friend who had been blessed with MAHO powers, only to see them become a curse when Shizuru came into Natsuki's life. A friend who had become blind with first love, then obsession and finally a twisted desire to destroy the very thing that Natsuki was bound to by her mother's Ritual of Contract. The SEERS Society and Fuuka OrCHARD.
"I'm coming, Natsuki," Kitada called out after feeling her MAJO's urgency pulsing over her through the bond. "But don't forget, we can't take him too lightly! Afterall, he's not just a MAHO anymore!"
As Kitada floated up behind Natsuki, the girl with her dark-blue hair flowing loosely in the breeze only snorted, "I could never take Takeda Masashi too lightly, not after you've reminded me of everything he's done! Just remember to keep clear of him until he materializes his Nightmare, then we can finish him off together! Until then, just stay back and keep whatever else is in there with him off my back!"
Kitada's lips curved into another mischievous smile as the feelings from Natsuki rolled in through their shared bond.
"So," she stated bluntly, eyes serious and locked dead ahead even though her voice was edged with could only be termed as 'delighted mirth'. "We're going to rush headlong into whichever warehouse he's hiding in with who knows what as his backup without the support we were sent here with, eh?"
A small grin played across Natsuki's face as she replied, "That's the general idea. Problems?"
"Nope," the translucent girl returned in the same tone as before. "But I do think that Fujino-san is going to be pissed about you leaving her out of this. You know how protective she is of you, if you catch my meaning."
Natsuki's grin grew into a taut line that carried none of that earlier playfulness.
"Yeah," she returned, reaching the closest warehouse and leaning back-first against its grimy wall to peer around the corner. "I do. But Shizuru sometimes gets a bit too overprotective of me. I'm not a rookie anymore and I can handle things myself. Besides, this situation with Takeda…I need to handle it alone. Shizuru being around would just make things worse."
Kitada's voice lost its mirth and her smile disappeared along with it. "Things might be worse without her being there, Natsuki."
Kuga Natsuki's eyes flashed briefly with determination as she ignored her Phantom's final words and rushed swiftly around the corner of the warehouse, saying nothing more in return.
-OOO-
From across the near vacant street that seemed to glow eerily in the fog-obscured illumination that the streetlamps cast upon it, two unmoving figures stood along the edge of an old six-story cannery building. In the quiet, late night gloom present around them, they casually observed the movements of Kuga Natsuki and her Phantom. The wind rose suddenly and the long, brown hair of the young woman with her arms held gracefully by her sides briefly ascended from her lithe shoulders and back. For a moment or two it flowed gently in the strong breeze coming off the Pacific Ocean, casting its long, healthy strands elegantly along her left shoulder while her somewhat uneven bangs brushed lightly across her eyebrows. The woman's reddish-brown eyes held a rather casual expression as they watched the dark-blue haired girl skulking through the shadows of the warehouses. It was neither worried nor irritated. She simply wore a look that was merely...content.
To the contrary, the stoic woman standing beside the first had a neutral and empty expression that might have been more suitable on the face of a prison warden. Her bright cerulean eyes and long, ebon hair just made her translucent appearance seem all the more ethereal and unreal; giving her a vaporous beauty that could not be matched by anything that still wore mortal flesh. Her shiny, black hair fell in waves down her back, held together at about near the end of its length by a single, intricately designed ribbon of the deepest blue which was nearly a perfect match for her eyes. The ghostly young woman's long arms were positioned stolidly behind her back and her clothing was almost an exact copy of traditional miko attire. If nothing else, she exuded the same beauty and grace that the young lady beside her did.
"As expected," the blue-eyed girl stated in a regal, yet casual tone. "Kuga-san has disregarded the orders of the Society Council yet again. She was supposed to alert us before moving in on the target so we could render aid. Why does she continue to be so stubborn, Shizuru-sama?"
Fujino Shizuru simply smiled a knowing smile.
"Ara," she returned in a mildly playful tone, reddish-brown eyes still focused on the girl and her Phantom as they moved deeper into the darkness of the warehouses by the pier. "Natsuki will do as she pleases, Kuroki. Even I cannot change that."
The look on Kuroki's slender face remained unchanged, though her eyes did narrow ever-so-slightly as she replied, "Then perhaps a stronger hand is needed to rein her in. There is little need for a MAJO who cannot follow such simple orders. All this bravado will end up doing is placing her and her Phantom in a jeopardizing situation which will require our assistance to remove her from."
At that moment, Shizuru feigned a wounded look as she raised a hand from her side and placed its open palm against the side of her cheek.
"How could Kuroki say such mean things about Natsuki?"
Shizuru's Phantom cast a sideways glance at her MAJO and then lowered her bright blue eyes in deference.
"You know I meant no disrespect by what I said, Shizuru-sama. I was merely stating the facts of how rash Kuga-san's actions are. The target, Takeda Masashi, is regarded as being very unstable by the SEERS Society. And that, coupled with the fact he has a past acquaintance with Kuga Natsuki-san, will only make him more so. It was for this reason that we were dispatched along with Kuga-san for this assignment. To keep the situation from growing worse."
The brown-haired woman wearing a shin-length, flowing lilac dress with long sleeves and highlights of white across the collar and chest lowered her hand back to her sides. Once there, Shizuru's face took on a more serious expression.
"Have faith in Natsuki, Kuroki," she began lowly, her voice carrying a more than deep affection in its tone. "She has yet to fail in any task that she sets her mind to. Yes, Natsuki is very stubborn in how she goes about doing things, but she is also very determined to solve her own problems." Shizuru paused for a moment to release a light sigh before continuing. "And though I truly do wish that she would allow me to help her some of the time, I understand the reasons that lie within Natsuki's heart. For me, that's all I need."
Raising her head back up, Kuroki returned her bright, cerulean eyes to the rows of warehouses just as Natsuki and her Phantom, Kitada, entered the one closest to the end. Through her bond with Shizuru, she could feel no fear for the girl coming from her MAJO. All that was present was a radiating calm; a composed certainty that the girl she had given her heart to would manage to succeed in the situation that fate had placed her in. Somewhere deep inside of Kuroki, she wished that she could feel the same.
"I do pray," she finally replied, gazing down at the warehouse where flashes of light were already beginning to light up the once dark windows. "That your faith will be enough, Shizuru-sama. For Kuga-san's sake as well as our own."
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE FIRST CHAPTER OF MAI-MAJO!
A Brief Note and a Disclaimer/Claimer: Right off the bat, I want to apologize if any of the Mai-HiME/Otome characters sound OOC. Keeping them in character is not as easy as one might think and I'm trying. So please understand. Also, I don't own anything remotely related to Mai-HiME, Mai-Otome or Mai-HiME Destiny (but if I did, there would be a sequel to Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome Zwei would have never made it to the air without some serious quality control tests!). But I do claim ownership over the original characters found in this story. They shouldn't be too hard to spot as they will be there to support the main characters in the story. This is my second Mai-HiME fanfic, so please…be gentle…
This story basically takes place in an AU utilizing characters and concepts from all across the Mai-Universe mixed in with a few of my own ideas. I hope the concepts I present here aren't too 'out there'. I sincerely apologize if they are, as well as for any spelling and grammar mistakes that I might have missed during my proofing. Most of the secondary characters presented here were created by me and come from a couple of stories I have on Fictionpress (under the 'still2twisted' penname), though some of them have yet to appear within any of the stories as of yet. I really hope that the presence of OCs won't deter anyone from at least giving the story a good read.
Also, please forgive me for not being what you could call a regular updater. As much as I may want to, I just don't have the time to update on a decent basis. Plus, there are other stories both here and on Fictionpress that demand my attention. I'm not saying I won't try to update this story as regularly as possible, because I will. I just want everyone else to be aware of the situation should any of you like what you read here.
Well, with that being said I guess I'll go ahead and leave things there. I promise to try and get up Chapter One as soon as I can (seeing as that's were we'll see the confrontation between Natsuki and Takeda). Oh and don't worry, there should plenty more Shiz/Nat action forthcoming as well as plenty of other characters taken from Mai-HiME, Mai-Otome, Mai-Otome Zwei and Mai-HiME Destiny showing up along with a few of my own creation! I really hope everyone enjoys this little taste of魔女HiME: Mai-MAJO and with any luck, it'll come out better than my last attempt at authoring a Mai-HiME story (though, I do mean to continue it!).
Laters!
(PS – If the kanji isn't right, I truly apologize. It's supposed to read as Majo-HiME: Mai-MAJO. Yeah, I know it sounds weird read like that, but I'm not quite a normal guy…LOL!)