A/N: I'm terribly...terribly sorry for this unnecessarily and ridiculously long hiatus. I have had so many things thrown at me all at once, that writing fanfiction was so down at the bottom of my priorities. Nonetheless, however, things have calmed down. I feel stupid because this chapter has been done for months and I was just too lazy to put it up, however the next chapter is half way complete. So with that said, I hope you can enjoy this next installment.

A Perfect Circle

She had been in a room she didn't know, nor ever had seen before. She couldn't even describe the source of her ambivalent familiarity, seeing the things inside the dull, shadowed room, never seeing them before but yet knowing them, feeling comfortable. There was a powerful sense of confusion and dementia about her, understanding and acknowledging her surroundings while at the same time wanting to feel foreign in such an alien place. She couldn't feel the things around her. Her senses were absent, save for the delirium in her sight. Even as she looked down, she saw that she was apparently naked, and the cobalt sheets that swirled about her exposed body were intangible. Her hand sifted over the fabric, and her fingertips felt nothing.

A transparent feeling of warmth shrouded her before it disappeared. This made her look up, looking into passionate oceans of emerald, swirling in a mesmerizing pattern before her own eyes, as their color danced youthfully. As her gaze stayed entrapped by such a forbidden beauty, she could outline the simmering glow of pale, milky skin on the outskirts of her sight. Enticing green enshrouded her, as the pools came closer, and although the feeling was not there, she knew the woman's lips had pressed themselves upon her own. Her body would have heated dramatically, and her skin would have flushed into a shade of excited red should she be able to feel her nerves.

The two women kissed, releasing a segment of quick, deep kisses, one acknowledging the tongue of the translucent other as it drifted over the other's lips. Strangely, she felt the abrupt sensation of feeling in her body, as it began to heat intensely, feeling blood rush up through her veins into her face. She began to quicken her breathing, as the rapid beating of her heart sent the air through her lungs faster through the cage of her chest. Her eyes had been closed, and she indolently lifted them, her weakened sight taking in the subtly half-hidden eyes before her, their turquoise gleam shimmering beneath her eyelids, much like the sight of a jewel as it sat beneath the surface of the ocean, refracting its benevolent light into patterns against the ocean's floor. Having her lips separated from the other briefly, they parted, as a gasp of breath escaped her when the other's fingertips danced diligently over her stomach, grazing the flesh with incredible cautiousness and passion. She could feel herself growing hotter, and her heart thrashed about in her chest as the fingertips turned to full hands, which ran their course up her stomach and along her sides, finally taking their place upon both of her full breasts with delicate pressure.

She closed her eyes, and felt the vibrations in her throat as she released a moan, having it echo against the walls of the world. Her arms lifted themselves off of the sheets, and went to glide over the other's shoulders, though her body felt no sense of warmth, or tangible skin when she did so. The body before her seemed as if it were an apparition. She could not clearly cohere thoughts in her head to make up the visual appearance of the woman before her, nor should she describe the way it felt to touch her, how it felt to glide her fingers across the gleaming vanilla skin of her body.

She began to feel the thrill of emotion rise inside the depths of herself as the woman pressed their bodies together, the only sensation being heat that gave her a tangible emptiness in her stomach. Hands touched and coursed their way around her body, pushing her up as the other rested her upon their lap, and lips tantalizingly grazed the base of her neck. She could not conceal her rising moans, wrapping her arms around the other, seemingly lost inside the ecstatic delirium of both feeling and not being able to feel, coherent of both their souls as they rocked together, and as she moaned the name of the woman loving her, praising her name with lust and worship upon her lips…

"…Na…Natsuki…"

Mai snapped up in a violent manner, in a blurring obscurity of sheets, until she sat up, slouching over. She sat catatonically, eyes emptily gazing directly ahead into the shadowed wall across the room, the light of the rising sun seeking darkness on the wall through intervals of the closed shades. It was the unusually still and inert expression one made when suddenly disrupted from dreaming. Her body calmed itself as her muscles relaxed, her whole figure seeming to wane. Her tight shirt had ridden up her stomach until it wrinkled up just beneath her chest. The blankets lay abandoned and distorted on the floor, messily hanging off the edge of the bed. And Mai remained in this mentally absent state, until her mind had finally revitalized from sleep, and her eyes glimmered as they focused themselves.

"…Oh…god…" She whispered, having it come out more as a hoarse groan than anything. Her hand came up, arm aching lethargically as her fingers ran down messily fumbled strands of her copper hair and dropped back into her lap. Her face wrinkled in a distortion of emotion momentarily, lips parted as if in exasperation. "I just…I, I just…what?"

She had brought both hands up, and stared hard into their palms as they moved up toward her face. She hadn't exactly been sure what to do with them, having moved them simply in a state of mental hysteria. Her eyes blinked hard, before enveloping her face in her hands, fingertips just barely grazing into the sides of her cheeks and forehead.

"No, no, no, no, no, no…" She dropped her hands, yelling at the wall. "Fuck, no!"

Something moved harshly in the corner of her eye, and Mai jerked her head to see Mikoto, who had been hugging her blankets against her body while staring at Mai with a tired, yet startled expression.

"Mai…?" She groaned, just barely audible, her eyes still an enticingly piercing gold, even after just being abruptly startled awake.

Mai's apologetic eyes settled unto her roommate, turning her torso just slightly which made part of her shirt fall. "Sorry, Mikoto, I had a…weird dream." She mumbled, assuming Mikoto would figure drowsiness was the cause of her mumbling.

The feral teen watched her companion idly, before she suddenly gave an indifferent expression, and then cocked her head as if she were a confused animal. "Mai?"

"Y-Yes?" She asked, forcibly talking over the crack in her voice she got from that strange, accusing look she was experiencing from her simple, yet insightful friend.

Mikoto lingered in a brief pause, before asking, "Why's your face look like it's burning up?"

Mai stiffened visibly, before a hand made its way up to her cheek, and she could feel the heat that radiated off of her skin and onto her fingertips. She raised the other hand, also feeling as both her palms took in the fire in her skin. She faltered with her hands as she brought them down, looking into the endless pools of the sheets around her body with stricken, lavender eyes. 'I'm still flushed from the dream…I was so hot…' She could not repress the thoughts that circulated through her mind at such a rapid pace, picturing Natsuki cradling her in lap, caressing her naked body, allowing herself to moan the woman's name in ecstatic pleasure…

"J-Jesus Christ!" She barreled her face down into her palms and could practically feel sweat accumulate on her forehead beneath her bangs, her entire body beginning to feel enflamed with embarrassment. 'What the hell…what is wrong with me…why?'

Mikoto flinched, then raised her golden eyes back onto Mai with even more risen confusion. "Mai, what's wrong?" She asked sternly, tone laced with passionate care for the rust haired woman.

Mai sighed, dropping her hands inertly against the bed before arching her neck; her hair attractively poured down unto one side of her face, concealing an amethyst jewel. "Nothing's wrong, Mikoto, really." She droned, staring up toward the ceiling and all its ordinary whiteness.

There was a stiffness in the air, Mikoto feeling emotion of both anger and sympathy grip her heart. "Did you, have a bad dream about Tate, or something?" She huddled the blankets against herself.

Mai suddenly lost the thoughts of the previous dream, others quickly filling her constantly swarming head. She slowly brought her face down, eyes resting onto her form as her legs coiled beneath her, exposed by her shorts colored in robin's egg blue. Her eyes were empty, and bitterly searching, as their large irises looked over the fresh cuts, bruises, and other chasms that tainted the soft and subtly tanned skin of her body. The marks had made her heart flinch, each strike of violence upon her flesh appearing like a black streak destroying the once serene surface of an untouched canvas. Tentative fingers pressed over each lesion, each grisly abrasion along the sides of her calves and thighs. She brought one of her arms forward, exposed through the strap of her tank top, to also look over deeply embedded lacerations into her arms; red scrapes, deep purple imprints and punctured, open areas made each touch send a quick, electrical surge of pain into her nerves. She had no doubt the same wounds would be inflicted along her stomach and back as well. She had been prone to seeing them reflect back at her with dark acknowledgment in the mirror, prior to their creation the night before, as if it were mundane. As each finger precariously waved over each disrupted area of her arm, her body flinched, twitching sketchily, and her eyes had dilated in the moments her body felt pain with both fear and pure, uncensored hatred.

Mikoto had watched, but while patient and silent did a violent emission of dark and raging thoughts rise up in her mind, hidden behind her eyes, that remained gleaming with a passionate and powerful care as they watched every mark send shrills of hurt and pain through her companion's beautifully torn body. Even so ruined and fouled, Mai was always beautiful. Her willful persona and maturity allowed her aura to shimmer perpetually, for her mind did not let her eyes lose their incredible, unique glimmer. And, she had been rather blessed with such a body that, while it had grown admirable and an envy to some, also was carried with infallible dignity, and hid its darkness and its pain behind a powerful swaying of hips and locking of legs. Contaminations, bruises and the like, were merely scratching the surface, it had appeared. They could not damage the will that lie under the skin of such an untamed and young bombshell.

Her heart is what brought such a bombshell persona crumbling down into ashes.

Physical wounds left their mark on the surface, to heal and rid their worth from the naked eye and the vacant mind. Their value, their significance, lingered down through the depths of her blood, traveled through her veins and, like a leech, drained the life out of her soul from the inside out. Each scar left by the past, was etched into her heart, like the engravings of two lovers' names into the surface of a tree. They would remain there, forever plaguing and mocking her insides, until her body grew weak and deprived of life, and withered down into the earth. Her demons would take their respective graves by her side.

Such as read in the fables of romance, until death do they part.

"Mai." Mikoto deadpanned, worry aching in her throat.

Mai's neck snapped upward, and her gaze met with the younger one. Her eyes flickered with distraught emotions before they were forced to settle with a calm countenance.

"It's alright Mikoto, " Her voiced poured with such an angelic carefulness that Mikoto had visibly dropped all tension in her muscles. "I didn't dream about Tate. You don't need to worry about him."

"Not worry about him my ass!" She practically yelled in retort, eyes igniting passionately.

"Language." Mai deadpanned, sighing tiredly, her muscle seeming to throb rhythmically while she tried to hide her exhausted state.

"No, I can't stand this bullshit, Mai."

The copper haired woman cringed visibly, but remained silent.

"I can't…understand," Mikoto began, eyes burning into the nothingness before her to search for the words in a phantasmal void. "I can't understand how you let him do that to you. How you let him use you like that. And when he doesn't get his way, he abuses you, does this" she designated an elongated bruise along Mai's arm, "to you, and yet in the mix of things you somehow see it as your fault and let him get away with it. You just can't see how he's changed you, Mai! How it hurts to watch and stand by to let Tate ruin you and your life, just because as a friend, I have to do as you want me to. I can't…" She brought her bottom lip to her mouth and bit down harshly, eyes piercing Mai's lavender orbs with blistering suns before looking down. "I can't understand it at all."

"You sound just like Natsuki, you know." It hadn't sounded bitter, yet it held some kind of subliminal coldness to it coming out of Mai's mouth almost immediately after Mikoto paused. But warmth spread through her sadly played smile, and brought up a playful gleam in her eyes. "She would probably say the exact same thing, albeit a bit more animatedly."

After a moment, Mai felt herself grow hesitant under the condescending gaze of Mikoto, who seemed expectant and very impassive.

"I'm telling her."

"You are not telling her, actually." Mai bit quickly, brow furrowing.

"Then you do it. It's Tate's death wish either way, and you know it."

"Which is why Natsuki will not know," Mai then slowly, and it appeared, painfully, lifted herself from the bed as her bones and muscles ached with each contraction of her limbs. "and I will do my best to work out my issues with Tate." She took a moment of silence, and then found the will to stare into Mikoto's eyes. "This is our problem, therefore it's our responsibility to take care of it, and no one else's."

Mikoto knew she hadn't been close to giving a persuading word during their argument, so she sighed, body slumping childishly against the covers she had huddled into herself as her eyes turned away into a pout. "Whatever, if I sound like Natsuki, that must mean I sound like the smart and logical one in this conversation."

Mai couldn't help but giggle lightly as that, "Yes, Natsuki would be the one to constantly restate her logical way of thinking about things." She looked up as she began walking away, making for the bedroom door. She stopped as her hand pressed on the side of the doorway, body twisted as she turned so her eyes lied on Mikoto's unimpressed glare. "I'm going to go see her, to get a few things I left there, and to check up on her."

The feral ex-HiME quirked an eye, perplexed. "You're going there today?"

"Yes. Why?" Mai questioned hesitantly.

"What are you going to tell her when she sees all of those marks?" She paused, face seeming to darken. "You can't hide them all."

Mai's eyes seemed to have let a crack slip over the glass wall they shielded their true emotions from, though she looked away when the flash of guilt washed over them. "I'll…think of something."

"You're going to lie to her, then?" Mikoto interrogated, in a condescending manner.

She couldn't see the fiery woman's bitter smile. "We're HiME, Mikoto. Lying is the truth."

When Natsuki had woken up, she had awoken to the sight of her bathroom looming over her. The lights that blistered above the sink cabinet burned into her eyes powerfully, causing a strange, dry grumble in her throat and her head to jerk sideways. She turned her gaze onto the shower, which she could see she had torn down the curtain as it lay sprawled upon the floor, and that the shower was still running. There were streaks across the opposing wall, seeming to have dried into a dark copper and to have once been her own blood. She saw through bloodshot eyes, how it trailed from the sides of the walls, down the side of the bath tub and stained scant areas of the floor and bathroom counter. Drowsily, she drooped her head down at herself, and she saw how her shirt had been torn and mangled, and a deep crimson stain of her blood dried upon the front of her shirt.

"…Fuck…I like this shirt…" Her voice broke as she spoke, almost in a strangled whisper. But, looking over herself, emerald eyes stared strangely as she looked to see her right arm, bent upwards, with the needle of a syringe still embedded into her arm as it sat there, empty, held by pressure of muscle and skin. She sighed harshly after a moment, and lethargically lifted her other arm, removing the syringe slowly out from her flesh. As she went to lift the other arm, she suddenly jerked her body in a fit of pain, as her nerves throbbed down her hand and through her arm, up to the shoulder and side of her chest. The syringe flew across the bloodied bathroom floor as she gripped her arm, desperately applying pressure to withhold such throbbing pain from going through her. She looked back down, to see that blood absolutely soaked her hand, and that it coursed with pain, and her fingers were slightly curling as if the hand were paralyzed. Even after she cleansed herself in the shower, blood still poured from the open wounds in her hand, along her knuckles. While the damage wasn't physically obvious, only several scrapes showing, the bone inside felt severely mangled, and each time she made a diligent attempt to move her limb, it sent out a warning of pulsating pain shooting through her nerves.

Silently, she lay in indecision. Then she knew she had to get herself off from the floor. She brought her functioning hand to the floor, using it to lift herself. Fire erupted in the muscles that awoke in her movements, causing her to hiss through gridded teeth, the skin along the bridge of her nose to wrinkle, and her brow to lean in harshly. Pressure applied to the arms and legs sent numbing waves through them, only subsiding when she managed to stumble to her full height. Her hand supported her against the counter while she adjusted her unfocused sense of clarity. She saw her jacket sprawled about on the bottom of the bath, and the water had been soaking it all night. Natsuki sighed, and she bent over the side of the tub in order to turn off the shower, and the water had slowed until it dripped idly. She grasped the black denim jacket from the floor of the bath, adjusting to how the water weighed it down. It dripped incessantly, and she would have rung it out should she be able to use her other hand. The raven grumbled, throwing the jacket into the sink as water fell upon the floor. Ceasing the perpetual sound of the shower, she bent over the sink, head hung lethargically between her shoulders.

"I need to go to church or something…" Natsuki grumbled, bringing up her head in order to face the monstrosity of her reflection through the mirror. Her face had been grimy and carried a gleaming film of sweat, of which her ratty, dark hair clung to. Her eyes dimmed listlessly, like jewels forgotten and corroded through sand and storms. They were outlined in a painful, protruding red and then cradled in a tired purple of which drawled beneath her eye sockets. Gliding a finger over her face, she felt the grimness of her skin, the pigments of blood and sweat. She descended her fingers to the ridge of the sink, letting the languid gaze of her reflection burn its impenetrable impression into her subconscious.

'…Why did I dream of you?'

Her body numbed as her eyes did not leave their place, searching through the whirling pools of lilac that presented themselves to her. What was surrounding her had consisted of a crimson warmth, and the indistinct room she had found herself in seemed to dully glow in an ardent red. The sun's beams danced over the shadows and mounds of the auburn sheets, sifting over Natsuki's movements as she shifted her body beneath the blankets that enveloped her. She could not find the will to force her eyes away from the passionate duel they found themselves entrapped. The golden light outshined the maroon curtains, filling the pores along Natsuki's nakedness with warmth.

Mai walked closer to Natsuki from the end of the bed, and her form leaned against the ripples of her white gown, that glided over her body as a silken shroud. Lines in the fabric shaped themselves over the subtle protrusions and the forms of her curves. Bringing one leg forward accented the opposite hip as it locked seductively. Her hands hung and wavered idly by her sides, and her face, stimulated by the glow of shimmering copper hair, hung with compelling style. And her gaze, completely and enticingly powerful and dramatic, was set on Natsuki.

Natsuki sat, ensnared by beauty and weighed down by the seduction that allured brilliantly from Mai's body.

There's something about the way she's moving close to me…

That angelic gown that had perfectly shaped itself over the woman's body coiled around the exposed curves, as Mai lifted her hands, fingers sliding through the straps over her shoulders and letting them slip over her skin. The moments passed in slow, climactic moments of sexual anticipation. The gown fell around her body, slowly and graciously, like the wings fallen from an angel. Each portion of Mai's body that gave itself to the world to see, were deep and daunting sins that Natsuki's eyes had indulged in, and she felt herself growing ecstatic with bewilderment at the sight of such a body.

Mai smiled the smile that could have captivated the hearts of a thousand men.

And she had the body that could captivate the wants of even more.

Her body was bare against the world now, completely free, and each movement could be detailed through every motion and rhythm as she pressed her knee upon the end of the bed, and brought herself forward. Her chest hung enticingly between her arms, of which their hands dug into the waves of sheets. She leaned in like that of an experienced seductress toward Natsuki, whose breath had lost itself in the heated moments that had passed between the two bodies drawing closer.

There's something about the way she's undressing herself for me…

When Mai lifted her head and brought her lips over Natsuki's own, the soldier did not close her eyes. She let them drift open, gleaming a shade of rejuvenated viridian, taking in the beauty that engulfed her vision, wanting to be consumed by such a deity that pressed intangible lips to her own in a wanting passion.

Natsuki removed her stare from the imitating eyes of the mirror, turned with her back to the sink, and gawked at the aftermath of the violence and wrath she bestowed on her unsuspecting bathroom in a drunken stupor the previous night.

She dragged a hand down along her face. "God, have mercy on my soul…I don't need it anymore…"

Midday's frozen winds howled against Mai's frame as she desperately bundled herself in the shelter of her brown woven coat. Her eyes settled on the quickly transpiring digital lines of a rising price on the gas pump she had been using, while holding the end of the pump to her sedan with a gloved hand. She used the other functional hand to click at her phone, moving downward on the screen until came up an infamous name to her tongue.

Natsuki.

Her breath stormed through the lifeless air with liberation of life in otherwise barren cold, waiting for the expectant voice to pick up. It had eventually.

"Hello?" A voice broke the silence amidst muffled static.

"Natsuki. Hey." Mai subconsciously smiled, leaning against her car door.

"Hey. What's up Mai?" The tone was calm, a bit lethargic, and mellow.

"Pumping gas. I was, calling to ask about my things."

"Oh yeah, right. What about it?"

"I was just wondering…if maybe I could come by today to get it? I don't want to just leave it there taking up space."

The silence waited, until Natsuki finally said, "Oh hey, don't worry about it, it's really not bothering me y'know. It's just some clothes and books and stuff, right?"

"Well, yeah, pretty much, I just feel like I'll get lazy and forget about it if I don't get it soon, you know?"

"I honestly don't see that happening. You're much too prudent for mortal flaws." Natsuki bit sardonically.

And Mai laughed, and her smile gleamed in whiteness. "I really wish I could see your point-of-view on this goddess-like demeanor you've made up for me. I sound like a pretty majestic person."

"I only see you for the perfect little princess you make yourself up to be."

"…Shut up."

A cool laugh echoed on the line. "Oh, getting snappy 'cause I made a point?"

"Hmmm…I like you better when you're dim-witted." The redhead cooed.

She leaned her body back against the crisp metal of the car, listening to the monotonous crackle and murmur against her ear.

"Yeah, you made your point. Make sure to knock first, eh?"

"Maybe."

The connection dispatched, and that was all.

She fixated the pump back into it's holster, closed her tank cover and quickly retreated from the cold into her car. Knuckles were white and wrapped forcefully around the steering wheel at 2 and 10 o'clock as she rolled into the street. Dim, restless eyes took repetitive takes into the rear-view mirror only to be reciprocated with an equal gaze.

It was as if she had the devil sleeping in her backseat, though she wasn't so fortunate.