What a horrible way to have ended a chapter and then left you hanging for months! Soooowwy, but this fallout just took foreeeever to get myself to write. If you guys are even still there by now, that is. Who is ready for Shizuru's crazy time? :o

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Natsuki had no idea for how long she stared after the woman who had just, literally, flown away from her. When she got back on her bike though, she vaguely noted that the sun had cleared the horizon and was way too bright. She felt like it should be darker outside. She headed back toward her apartment, glad that she wouldn't have to think about what had just happened for hours yet. That was why she'd gotten her Ducati in the first place—she could escape from the things that bothered her. Of course, because she was trying so hard not to think about anything, and succeeding, it felt like she arrived at her apartment in no time. She climbed the stairs with heavy, slow steps—she was exhausted in many ways, and guessed she could just go to sleep and think about…things…later. So the bluenette took a quick shower and lay down, asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Only to be woken up a few hours later by loud pounding on her front door. She tried to ignore it, but whoever it was could be annoyingly persistent. She rolled out of bed and plodded to the door in her t-shirt and boxers to yell at whoever was on the other side—but when she opened the door, she didn't have time to say anything because there was an angry redhead on the other side.

"What the hell, Kruger? I buzzed forever trying to get in here, and finally Mrs. Green let me up, just so you could ignore me some more. You were supposed to meet us at the college today for a study session, you useless little—" Nao was cut off when the door started to shut in her face, but she put her foot in the jamb and forced her way in. "Oh, it ain't gonna be that easy." She paused a moment, taking in the bluenette's haggard, distressed appearance. "…Uh…seriously, what the hell happened to you?" she said, failing to keep the concern completely from her voice. Natsuki smirked at her.

"Why, Miss Yuuki, it almost sounds like you give a shit." She said, and Nao frowned.

"Well…I don't…" she started, "I was just, you know, wondering why you stood Mai up. She wasn't happy, and sent me to check on you because she had another class." She lied (although it was a pretty good one, Natsuki privately complimented).

"Well, I slept in." Natsuki lied right back. "That's it. I'll tell Mai later that I'm sorry." And she looked at the door longingly, hoping that Nao would go back through it so she could sink back into blissful unconsciousness. Nao ignored the look and went to Natsuki's fridge to get a beer. The bluenette sighed. Of course it wouldn't be that easy.

"It was that Viola…woman, wasn't it?" Nao said suddenly, and Natsuki's eyes snapped up to meet the redhead's surprisingly serious gaze.

"How…" she started before she could stop herself, and Nao scowled.

"I knew it was a horrible idea in the first place…Mai is such a fucking idiot…" The redhead began ranting, and Natsuki was extremely confused, but barely had time to contemplate what Nao had just said before she continued, "What did that monster do to you?" she asked the distressed girl. Natsuki stared blankly at her friend, if that was the right word for the redhead. "Nevermind, I'll go and beat it out of her." She said and turned toward the door. She was stopped however, by a vice-like grip on her wrist.

"No, you won't. You stay the hell away from Shizuru." The bluenette said, and the low, dangerous tone of her voice shook the redhead.

"What the fuck, Kruger?" she asked, struggling to get out of Natsuki's grip and failing. "You're hurting me, damnit!" she finally said, and the bluenette snapped out of her anger and let her go.

"Uh, sorry…I just…Just leave Shizuru alone, okay? She didn't do anything wrong." Natsuki said finally to the shocked redhead. "I just…I need to be alone now, please?" she finally resorted to begging, and for the first time, it worked. Nao headed for the door. She didn't say a word to the blunette on her way out, and when the door closed, it felt as if Natsuki's legs turned to jell-o. She sank down to the floor with a heavy exhalation.

Why had she gotten so protective when Nao had threatened Shizuru? Was it because Nao didn't know what she was dealing with? She doubted that was the case, since she had jumped to Shizuru's defense rather than telling Nao what had happened. Natsuki sighed and realized that the only question she needed to find an answer to was whether or not what she had seen this morning changed how she felt about the British woman. She had part of her answer, she guessed, from her reaction to Yuuki's threats. The rest of her answer, she would have to get from the brunette woman herself. With this understanding in mind, she went back to bed.

She hoped she could get some more sleep before the sun went down. Obviously that was a problem for Shizuru. She didn't know if she'd be able to sleep though, with all of these things weighing on her, and with the way she'd been feeling lately. For the last few days, her body had started to feel…different. She felt stronger and more energetic. Except for the whole kryptonite thing, and maybe being from another planet, she kind of felt like Superman or something. It was stupid, she knew, but she felt like she could do anything. That was why she'd taken Shizuru to her spot this morning in the first place. She had felt like nothing could go wrong in her life, and the thing she wanted most to go right was…but it hadn't really gone well, had it?

3456

"This is bad." Mai said as soon as Nao left her apartment. She had barely talked the livid girl out of going to Shizuru's house and killing her. Or trying to kill her, which Mai thought was more likely. Nao was still new, and Lady Viola was over a century old. She wasn't sure Nao would have a chance, Harrow or not. Mikoto would probably be their only chance of beating her in a fight, and the Tokiha witch desperately wanted to avoid a situation in which a fight was the only resolution. What could have happened to upset Natsuki? She was sure that Shizuru wouldn't have done anything intentionally to hurt the blunette, but she guessed something else could have happened outside of the ancient woman's control. "Mikoto?" she called into the other room, and the bundle of energy bounced in.

"Yes, Mai?" she asked with a big smile. The redhead often envied her apparent innocence before she remembered how the Kanzaki witch had arrived at this state. She had experienced a mental break when the monster Arturius had tortured her for years. To protect herself, Mai guessed, from death, she had separated from her memories. When she had been found, Mikoto could only remember things from before her powers had manifested as a witch: her love for food, her older brother, and her pets. Her body remembered how to fight, though, and she was very good at it. In fact, when Mai had begun travelling with the small girl, she'd reached for her sword in answer to every little problem. It had taken some time for the redhead to break her of the habit.

"Get your things…we're going to go wait at Shizuru's house again." She sighed, and Mikoto nodded.

"Did she hurt Natsuki?" she asked seriously, and Mai looked up with surprise. Mikoto must have heard the worry in her voice. The little girl could be astute when she wanted to.
"I don't think she did, but she might have. We have to ask her why Natsuki is sad." Mai explained. Often, even though she was observant, Mikoto had to be talked to as if she were a child or she couldn't understand complicated situations well.

"Okay." Mikoto simply nodded, and went into the other room to get ready. With a sigh, Mai went to change as well. She had a really bad feeling about this.

3456

Shizuru Viola awoke feeling uncharacteristically empty. Or rather, since she had come to this town, such a cold emptiness was uncharacteristic. Even more specifically, she hadn't felt like this since her new life had begun under Arturius' direction. It was a calculating, vicious kind of emptiness that pulled her back to the nearby city through the air, and brought her to a group of gang members attempting to mug a businessman. They had him on the ground and were kicking at him cruelly when she landed mere feet from them.
"All that for the money in his wallet?" she asked with a small, unpleasant smile. They jerked to look at her.

"Where the hell did she come from?" mixed in with, "Get her!" fell upon her ears, and while the words reached them, they were not understood. Before they could finish reaching for their weapons, Shizuru had snapped the neck of the nearest thug and moved on to his nearest friend. She opened up his midsection and found the pitiful squealing sounds he made as his intestines spilled onto the dirty concrete did not please her as she had hoped. So she silenced him for eternity as well, and moved on to his other three compatriots, disposing of them without fanfare. She did not know whose city this was, and supposed it didn't matter as she would be leaving now as it were. She turned to leave and heard a stammering,

"Th-thank you…" the brunette turned, and the businessman froze in fear as he met her blank, crimson eyes. He realized as she moved toward him that he should not have said anything. She had indeed forgotten about the surviving human. She smiled politely.

"Oh no, sir, thank you." She said and sank teeth into his throat. She had forgotten how hungry she was until he had reminded her with the mouth-watering scent of his fear. She removed his head with one of the thugs' knives after she was finished to assure that police would assume a mass-killing, and not record the two puncture wounds in his neck. It was the least she could do for whoever was running this town for her kind after she'd caused him or her so very much trouble. With a faint, amused smile on her face, Shizuru took to the air to return home. Or the place she had been calling home for the last months. She would be clearing out tonight. Else the new friends she had recently made would be just like the businessman—discarded lunch. Before she left town, however, she would have to dispose of anyone who could hurt Natsuki. She could not leave the girl completely defenseless, which meant that she would dispose of every one of her kind in town, as well as the leftovers from the night they had met. It did not matter to her anymore that those of her kind living in town had sworn fealty to Lady Viola when they had moved into her territory, it simply mattered that there was a possibility that they might decide Natsuki looked like a good meal. She would see to it that none of them had the chance to touch her.