Moments in Time

Act One, Scene One

pas·sage1 Spelled [pas-ij] noun, verb,-saged, -sag·ing.
noun: A lapse or passing, as of time. or A progress or course, as of events. It grows exponentially.


After all was said and done and the Obsidian Lord was vanishing into nothingness much akin to the way that they themselves had vanished, Kuga Natsuki found herself torn between the need to sleep and the need to go somewhere, anywhere, to get away from the Land of Fuuka. More specifically, she wanted to get away from Fujino Shizuru and the sense of dread that seemed to permeate the very ground upon which she now stood.

It was a toxic place, and she had to escape it.

She folded her arms across her chest and exhaled slowly, her mind still spinning from the events of the day. Mai had won - just as she'd promised. She'd gone further, wishing them back into existence from the great beyond. Natsuki was grateful for her wish - as it was the one chance that they would have for a chance to start anew. Yet, now that she was here, she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

"Natsuki?" Fujino Shizuru's voice was hoarse from shouting, from crying - from dying at Natsuki's hand. They were alone once more, safe from the questioning looks and outright hostile stares from their peers. Natsuki turned and found herself forcing a smile onto her face. She was tired, exhausted both mentally and physically, and yet the smile grew easier as she met Shizuru's gaze evenly. Her best friend – her something else – always seemed to draw this reaction from her.

It was a nice sensation.

The question was on her lips before Natsuki could really even think about the implication of what she was asking. She blurted it out, knowing that if she didn't ask now; she probably would never ask it. There were so many questions like this one that she had let go unanswered in the years that spanned their friendship – she would allow her resolve to falter just once, to earn her a response she so desperately needed. "What do we do now, Shizuru?"

Shizuru's own smile was as fake-looking as the one that Natsuki had plastered on her own face, it didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes were still as empty and dead-looking as they had been that night when Natsuki had felt her body's traitorous rebellion to Shizuru's gentle touch. The memory was enough to send her mind back to that time and place, when she had not even been sure what was real and what was a fake vision planted in her mind by an overzealous Suzushiro Haruka. What was real, anyway?

Natsuki shuddered involuntarily, remembering how easily Shizuru had cut down her friends and enemies. They had not stood a chance against her cold and business-like attack – and Natsuki could not shake the image from her head. "I would like to sleep, if that is okay with you, Natsuki."

Like a collapsing building, the bone weariness that she'd been staving off hit her. Natsuki jerked her head up and down; voicing her silent agreement that sleeping was going to be a really good idea. She tried to remember if there was a place for them to go - Nao had trashed her apartment and the dorms had been all but destroyed so they couldn't go to Shizuru's room. Neither option was particularly appealing, as they both held so many painful memories of what had happened between them. Her place was probably a better option than the rubble of the dorms, however.

Nao had left her bedroom relatively untouched – would they sleep in the same bed? Natsuki balked at the idea - she wasn't sure if she trusted Shizuru enough right now - or if she ever had. They'd done it in the past, but even then, she'd felt scared of what doing that implied. Still, the closeness that she had felt then was so comfortable, and it had put her at ease after the initial moments of awkwardness.

Yet right now, she wanted nothing to do with Shizuru. She needed to be around the sandy-haired woman, and yet right now she needed to get away, to think. There was nothing for it, and despite everything, Natsuki knew that Shizuru would not take it well if she said anything. In truth, Natsuki was scared to put that thought into words. She didn't know what Shizuru would do, and she didn't know if she could trust her to not hurt herself or someone else. Shizuru had killed so many people – and they might not have been granted a second chance. She was afraid to risk it.

It raised a question that brought a fearful grimace to Natsuki's face. What if they didn't come back? Shizuru would know if they didn't come back – they would know who made their relatives not come back from the battle of the Carnival.

It really isn't a secret who killed them all.

A branch snapped and a voice that they both knew very well cut though their silence. It destroyed the moment so completely that Natsuki's brow twitched.

"Kuga," They turned as one, their shoulders brushing against each other before they quickly jerked away from each other. It was too soon to touch again. Natsuki knew it and she was sure that Shizuru did as well.

Still, the lack of contact hurt. The way that Shizuru had jumped away from her as though she'd been burned was a blow to her ego. She hadn't done anything wrong – yet she couldn't bear the idea that Shizuru didn't want to touch her.

What did I do wrong?

Yuuki Nao, sporting a bandage on one arm from where she'd been hit with a blast of the Obsidian Lord's dying efforts to save himself, stood on the far side of the clearing that they'd retreated to. Natsuki's brow furrowed, wondering if Nao was suicidal.

It would be like Nao, Natsuki knew. They were so similar and Nao did have a deathwish that lead her to push and push and push until someone reached the breaking point.

Natsuki clenched her fist, she wouldn't let that happen.

Shizuru's apology to both of her victims had been flippant and mocking. Natsuki was unsure what she should think of it. She knew Shizuru and she knew that it was the most uncharacteristic thing she'd said or done all day. Shizuru felt the pain of her actions far closer to home than she admitted publicly, and Natsuki knew this. Perhaps it was just a front, a way to brush off responsibility until Shizuru was ready and willing to accept it.

Cocking her hip in a way that drew attention to the fact that she, shockingly, was not wearing a skirt, Nao grinned. She ran a hand though her hair, very pointedly ignoring Shizuru and focusing all of her attention on Natsuki's questioning stare. "Can you give me a ride?"

Natsuki blinked. "A ride?" She asked, disbelief filtering into her voice. Nao had been her enemy not a week ago. Nao had been the most all-consuming threat that she'd ever encountered. Nao had known things, how to push buttons, how to drive Natsuki to the brink of madness that Shizuru had succumbed to.

She'd snapped – Shizuru had completely lost control. Shizuru had killed her child – killed her mother. She would have killed Nao if Natsuki had allowed it to happen.

Shizuru looked as though she was considering doing it again. Natsuki placed a cautionary hand on Shizuru's clenched fist, shaking her head ever so slightly; this was not the time or the place. They were powerless now, thanks to Mai's wish, and Natsuki was even more cautious now. If Shizuru decided to kill Nao – she'd have to do it with her bare hands – something that Natsuki never wanted to see. They'd all died once, wasn't that enough?

Nao's eyes betrayed her emotions. She looked fearful, scared to be in the presence of Shizuru's cold and heartless stare, and Natsuki knew it. There was something else too, an odd sort of hope that Natsuki had never seen before. She knew the most important person to Nao was in a coma in a hospital somewhere outside of Fuuka - could it be.

"To the hospital - the one in the Ninth Ward." Nao was being vague, but Natsuki was smart enough to put two and two together. That was the one hospital in the area that was not at least marginally controlled by First District. Natsuki had been herself on several occasions.

Perhaps her mother woke up?

Shizuru inhaled as if she was about to speak but Natsuki again shook her head. It was strange to be so in tune with Shizuru, strange to know what she was thinking almost before she did. Natsuki had felt this before, on that day when she went to fulfill her promise to Mai. She'd admitted how much she loved her then - and ever since it had been terrifying how powerful those emotions really were.

"I would have to go and get my old bike."

The new one, sadly, was ruined. Yamada had spent a small fortune on importing it, only to have Natsuki destroy it without a second thought. Nao had busted up her old one pretty good, but despite the superficial damage to the paint job it had just been an axel problem and Shizuru had seen to it that it had gotten fixed.

"That's fine." Nao said. She turned and made as if to walk away from the pair of them. Looking over her shoulder, she added, "I'll be waiting by the gate."

Natsuki nodded jerkily and turned back to Shizuru. There was a look of betrayal in those russet eyes. Panic began to set in and Natsuki licked her lips searching for the right words to say. She knew that if she wasn't careful, she could set Shizuru off. She had done it several times already and she was worried that if she handled this situation well that Shizuru would once more fall into insanity. It was simply a risk that she was unwilling to take. She ... she wasn't sure how she felt, but Kuga Natsuki was not going to let the person most precious to her in the world fall again into that abyss. "Don't be that way." She said quietly, reaching out to touch Shizuru's cheek.

Shizuru turned her head so that Natsuki's fingers did not meet skin. She clenched her fist and brought it back to hang by her side - she did not want to deal with this now. "Natsuki is willing to do so much for a girl who tried to murder her."

The hurt that she felt from being snubbed like that, was not something that she'd anticipated. Why didn't she want comfort?

Natsuki couldn't pretend to understand how Shizuru's mind worked.

A small sigh escaped Natsuki's lips. "If I don't do it, she'll ask someone else - and that someone else might be less willing to make sure she gets there in one piece."

She didn't want Nao, for some twisted and perhaps fucked up reason, to ask a random stranger for a ride. Nao's ability to get into trouble was rivaled only by her ability to make terrible decisions. Natsuki wanted to make sure that she was able to get to her mother in one piece. Perhaps this was her penance - to know that she had to care about Nao despite the messed up stuff that she had done during those horrible weeks.

Shizuru looked thoughtful, her body swaying slightly as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. She raised a hand up and tapped her chin, her voice almost lost on the wind as she spoke. There was a hiss in her voice that sent a chill up Natsuki's spine. "It would be wiser to just push her off a cliff once more."

Natsuki's balked. "Don't say things like that." She ground out through gritted teeth. There was no reason for such an attitude. They were no longer struggling against the world and survival was no longer paramount. It was as though Shizuru had forgotten that fact. Natsuki knew it was true though, and she had to help those who couldn't help themselves. Was it penance? She didn't know.

She clenched her fists even tighter; she couldn't look at Shizuru now. "Haven't we learned anything from today? We're alive; it would pretty fucking stupid to start killing each other again." She spat the words out as though they were an insult, and in a sense they were. Shizuru needed to know that how she behaved was not right - appalling and inappropriate.

Anger flashed in those dark eyes. At least it was some emotion, Natsuki reasoned. Something was better than those dead orbs she'd lost herself in upon dying. "She tried to kill you first."

Shizuru is a reflection upon myself. Natsuki's thoughts were circuitous and confusing. She could not understand why she was so afraid of Shizuru's reactions to everything - she didn't handle situations like these well. She never had.

Natsuki pinched the bridge of her nose with a drawn out sigh. Shizuru would realize that she was being foolish in time. It was not Natsuki's place to correct her... friend?

Friend was a fitting title and that was what Natsuki was willing to apply for the moment. They would talk - at some other time. Now was not the time.

Now she had to get away.

"I'm not having this argument." She said quietly. She was afraid of Shizuru's emotions sometimes, afraid of what they might do. She knew it was better to simply not engage - but she was still smarting from the comment, from Shizuru's refusal to let Natsuki touch her. Her voice was harsh, angry. "I'm going to go take her; it's about an hour round trip."

She dug, deep in her pocket, shocked that the ring of keys attached to a pocket knife and a flashlight were still there - contained despite death and rebirth. She twisted the ring, taking the key to her apartment off of the ring with a practiced motion. The key felt warm in her hand, and as she reached down and pressed it into Shizuru's hand, Natsuki hoped that the sandy-haired girl felt the warmth as well.

Shizuru's hand was clammy and cold in her own. The key burned as it passed between their grasps. "Go to my apartment, here's the key." Natsuki said quietly. They were standing very close together now, and Natsuki could smell the shampoo on Shizuru's hair and the scent of ash and fire on her clothes. It was a fitting smell for her, Natsuki thought.

Natsuki's eyes met Shizuru's in one of those long and meaningful looks that they had been exchanging more and more regularly as of late. There was suddenly a wicked smile that did reach Shizuru's eyes as she tapped her chin thoughtfully, the key now safely deposited in her blazer pocket. "Natsuki only has one bed, are you sure that you're-"

The nerve of that woman. Natsuki's brow twitched.

This was a good sign, however, a sign that maybe not all was lost between them. Still, the teaching tone and the implication. She wasn't ready for that - whatever it was. "Shi-Shizuru!" She spluttered.

There was never a discussion between the two of them, even though Shizuru teased her constantly it was a safe sort of teasing. And after Shizuru had had that confrontation with Suzushiro... Natsuki suppressed a shudder. What had been implied there terrified her, but she didn't think Shizuru capable of it.

Perhaps it was better to just pretend it didn't happen - give that she really wasn't sure that anything had happened. Still, the thought that Shizuru would betray her trust like that was at the forefront of her mind as she muttered, pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm fine with it - but just to sleep!"

"Ara, I was hoping Natsuki would ..." Shizuru's accent was thick, like she was trying to choke out something challenging to say - Natsuki had no idea what. There was something untraceable in Shizuru's eyes - a look of, was it longing? Natsuki had never been

Her brow furrowed, "Hoping what?"

Shizuru shook her head slightly, the jerking motion barely detected by Natsuki despite years of practice deciphering Shizuru's weird mood changes. Natsuki knew that she was going to try to tease further, but there was an almost-hidden quality in the request, as though Shizuru was going to ask for even more.

Something that Natsuki couldn't give, and despite her desperate hoping, it seemed as though Shizuru knew it too. "It is unimportant." Shizuru's accent was thick, her voice heavy with the burden of emotion Natsuki watched, unable to reach out and offer comfort. There was something holding her back.

Shizuru met Natsuki's inquisitive gaze eventually and with a sad smile, asked. "Will you call when you're on your way back?"

Natsuki hadn't even thought about that - thought about the fact that they were going to desperately need to talk.

She didn't want to talk; nor, she suspected, did Shizuru. They spent so long ignoring the actual events of the world around them, and of the emotions of the other that talking now would be pointless. Everything that they knew about each other was thrust, rather abruptly, into the open when it had been developing so nicely on its own - away from the prying eyes of society and their own mental torment. They did not speak of it, as they were unsure of just what it was yet.

Natsuki suspected that Shizuru had a name for the - thing - between them, but she would never ask for a definition. She was, perhaps rightly, afraid of what the answer might be.

Her cell phone was in her school blazer pocket, and Natsuki pulled it to check the battery before nodding at Shizuru. "Sure, do you still have your phone?" The question was off her lips and no sooner had it left than Natsuki regretted it. Asking that was the wrong thing to ask. She was terrified of what Shizuru might say now.

"I will retrieve it from where I left my things... before..." Shizuru trailed off as a sob escaped her lips.

The instinct to go to her, to embrace her and to kiss those tears away was almost too much for Natsuki to resist. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a wadded up bit of tissue that she was fairly certain was unused and offered it to Shizuru with a heavy heart. She couldn't... not yet anyway. She couldn't embrace her best friend. The pain of that rejection - the fear that what Suzushiro said had actually happened.

She clenched her fist.

It didn't happen that way. There was no way Shizuru would betray my trust like that.

"Shizuru..." She said quietly as Shizuru wordlessly accepted her proffered tissue. "Do you want me to walk with you?"

Wiping her eyes, Shizuru shook her head. "Like you, Natsuki, I need the time to think."

How the hell does she know that?

Shizuru reached out and touched Natsuki's cheek. It was a fleeting touch, but Natsuki's skin burned under the contact. "I will see you later."

Her cheeks burning with a fiery blush, Natsuki muttered, turning to head out of the clearing and down towards the city. "I'm leaving."

"Go and come back safely." Shizuru said, her voice sounding even more distant than before.

Natsuki left the clearing with the distinct feeling that she was being watched – scrutinized as she padded quietly down the dirty path and away from the girl who was so inexplicably important to her. It was the right thing to walk away, she knew it. Already it was too hard to talk to Shizuru, and it would only grow worse with time. Natsuki was no fool; she would not risk setting Shizuru off once more.


Thank you for your kind reviews and words of encouragement.