A/N: Due to the nature of this theme, it will be posted on its own. Dark themes abound. Read at your own risk.

17. Death
(HiME-Verse, Dark-fic, self-hate, sexual themes)

Death would easier.

She was sure that anyone would have told her that. She even felt convinced of that. Regardless, she had much more fun when truths twisted into deceit, and love trickled into hate. Life was a gamble, perhaps, but one that found itself tantalizing vicious in its own way.

Most people around her were bugs under her gaze, worthless. Merit-less to her cause, they were entirely expendable. Power gave her that authority. Yet, authority shackled her…tied her down and forced her to become the woman that everyone wanted her to be.

A perfect smile tugged at her lips, the way a chain would a slave.

It was a difficult mix…desire…and duty…imposed images upon a backdrop of legacy. Maybe it was the blood that pumped through her…one equally as red as anyone else around her. Maybe that's what made her realize her own worthlessness to the greater whole, because when she thought of that, she found that she rightly didn't care…the eyes of everyone else made her feel empty, like a soul cased in stone.

So, it was with such emptiness, that she found herself pondering the truly cold woman she'd come to befriend. A being she should hate, for all that sound reasoning allowed. Yet, humans were not completely rational, and sound logic wasn't always the most interesting outcome.

Shizuru Fujino was many things, to many people…but to herself, she was merely another cog in the grand scheme. Turning relentlessly against a flawed system. That was all well and good, and she was happy to sit at her father's side at a board room table, dutifully smiling and nodding her head were appropriate. She would even be the first to take a stack a files into her own custody and work late into the night.

Perfection warranted it, and beyond that, she was by and large, a creature of habit.

The perfect mask had but one single crack, and it was one that could be smashed into tiny bits upon the simplest sight…even if it was a sight she hated most. Nipping on her tongue was preferable over losing her temper, but, there was something even better than that. There was that tiny side of her that only a select few knew of.

A darker side birthed by frustration, anger, and loneliness. A side only released in the blackest nights, when her eyes were covered not merely by her own lids, but by a blindfold. It was only then she could feel the kiss of another. Hands bound, naked and exposed as what she truly was, dis-empowered by her own most basic urge.

One of not only primitive lust…but the need to feel alive.

It was always the same routine, angry sex, bordering on abuse…a mutual self-hate clouding their minds, and peppering their bodies with less than gentle adoration for the absurd. Whips and chains were only the start of it before toying with fire became a usual thing within the bag of tricks…and it didn't end there…not even when the tears began to fall from her eyes…not even then would she cry out, nor utter the safe word.

She could feel the breath on her neck, and hear the soft chuckle that slithered its way between each nip sure to leave a mark…but that cruelty was too gentle to really be cruel…and Shizuru was sure deep down, asking for this was doing more damage to the other woman.

…more damage to Mai...

"If we keep doing this, Natsuki will find out…" It was always that harsh laugh. Forced into the spotlight by the true nature of the voice speaking the atrocity.

"I know…" Yet even so, Shizuru willfully ignored that little detail. "I want her to find out."

"Why don't you just tell her then?" Again, that gentle voice seeped through an otherwise painful experience, as hot as the candle wax dripped onto her skin, the burn lingering even after the wax had cooled. Soft kisses showered those burn marks, and pleading fingertips caressed away the soreness left behind from several moments before.

"Why don't you just tell Tate?" Shizuru returned darkly, already knowing the answer.

Mai said nothing, and although Shizuru remained unseeing, she knew there was visible shame playing across Mai's face…and it wasn't the good kind found in their moments of sexual play, either. It was a true profound shame, clawing at the depths of her heart. "I know it won't do any good…" She began as she untied Shizuru's hands and began to walk across to the other side of the room, equally naked, only the candles in the room offering light that flickered across her body. "Tate has his hobbies, I have mine…"

"That's not what I meant." Shizuru answered crisply, pulling away the blindfold, her crimson eyes shining a little more deeply in the dark room than usual. "I'm not talking about our weekends together…"

Without even thinking twice about it, Mai lifted an arm over her breasts. "Does Natsuki have hers?"

"I haven't asked." Shizuru said as she went over to the place Mai stood, pulling at the wrist that kept the mark hidden from view. "She doesn't say…I haven't thought to ask the others."

"They don't…Mikoto doesn't, neither does Nao." Mai felt exposed by implication that reached far beyond her own nakedness…that mark pulled to the surface everything she didn't want to be, and reminded her of events that she would rather forget. "Does this really help?" Mai asked as she ran her fingers down a long scratch mark left behind some time during the night.

It was a great question, but, Shizuru had no answer for it. The window overlooking the city became immensely enthralling. "Natsuki has no interesting in hurting others, or being hurt by them." Distantly, she kept her words as neutral as possible. "Normally, I have no interest in dealing with others…most are too superficial for my liking."

Regardless of how she felt though, there were darker forces at play, a lurking beast that sat dormant and hungered. "Kiyohime is different, she likes to hurt the ones she loves, and, she comes to love the people she ends up hurting."

"But…that's…" Mai shook her head, unwilling to think that the beautiful woman before her was like that creature. "Shizuru, that's not you."

"It's part of me." Shizuru said then, the admittance lingering the same way that it always seemed to. Doubt aimed at her words stung more than her own regret at saying the truth. "Kiyohime, she's part of me…part of myself that I don't want, but, it is there none the less. Just like your own mark comes with its own troubles, mine comes with Kiyohime."

"That's true, but Kagutsuchi is my friend, not my enemy." Mai retorted, her denial giving her more strength than belief ever could. "He's only ever tried to help me, he's not like some of the others…"

"No, perhaps not…but he's strong." It was a mere statement, nothing more. "That blind sense of justified power terrifies you." Yet, she could see the hurt it caused, violet blinking rapidly to push away any emotion, vividly bringing the shock to the surface. "That he might act in your honor isn't something you amuse lightly."

Mai swallowed hard. "I don't want everyone to be afraid of me, you know what Kagutsuchi can do."

Shizuru grinned at that. "If we were ever able to call more than their voices to us, I'm sure I'd be able to beat you…however as it stands the point is moot. We're monsters, and the moment we tell a single soul about that, we're doomed."

"Does Natsuki know why you sneak off every Saturday night?" Mai asked then, gritting her teeth, and bracing herself for the worst.

"Probably." Shizuru shrugged, the black van was outside again, and she knew that meant she'd been followed. "Natsuki has her ways of keeping an eye on me, just as I keep an eye on her…she's overly protective, I'm overly possessive, it's really two sides of the same coin when you think about it."

Death, it was so much easier than this…so much more blissful than life's demonic game.