"I want to be the one - I want to be the person that touches your heart and makes it skip a beat - I want to be that person whose arms make you just melt - I want to be the person that your destined to be with."

Disclaimer: I don't own Mai HiME.


Chapter 28 – Irrevocably

The radiant light of the HiME-star illuminated the night sky, masking the world with a deep purple veil. Nao was sitting cross-legged on the forest ground while her gaze was drifting into the darkness. She looked as if the life had been sucked out of her body. The little girl in the wheel chair watched her for a few moments, hoping that the Spider-HiME would find her strength again, but nothing happened. Nao kept sitting motionless on the cold ground. Shizuru, who was standing a few steps away from her leaning against a tree, didn't look any better.

"It's all my fault...," Nao suddenly said to no one in particular.

"It isn't. You did what you thought was right... and I helped you with that futile plan. I believed we could beat him. I was foolish to think that we could trick Nagi so easily. After all, it's his world. I should have trained you better."

"But I couldn't keep her eyes closed... If Natsuki just wouldn't have interfered, it would at least have been me..." Nao's voice became low and broken. She wanted to just lie down and die right in the spot.

"And you would be okay with that?" The Kyoto-girl suddenly tossed in. Her voice was angry. She seemed to have completely lost her warm and melodic sound under the present circumstances. Nao slowly turned her head around to the older girl. Her eyes were swollen from the tears and her wound was still bleeding.

"I don't think I would have cared at all. Haven't you seen her eyes? She's gone!" Her frustration was targeting the chestnut-haired girl, and although she knew that yelling wouldn't help at all, she couldn't stop herself.

"That's not true. And if you would really believe that you wouldn't hesitate to fight her. You still have hope, and so do I," Shizuru shot back harshly.

"Kuga-san might still be there inside that vessel, but there's no proof." Mashiro's words were supposed to stop the girls from fighting over a thing that seemed to be lost anyway, but as expected it didn't work. Neither of them wanted to believe that Natsuki might be gone forever.

"I don't need proof. I'd still do anything to save her," Shizuru said with such certainty that Mashiro wished the girl was right. When Nao heard the words of the Kyoto-girl a new sparkle of hatred ignited in her heart. It was bad enough that Natsuki had become one of them, and she already knew that she might have chosen Shizuru anyway, but still hearing such things from the older woman made her more than angry. She brought herself up, ignoring the sharp pain that was shooting through her lower body and faced the chestnut-haired girl with hate-filled eyes.

"You shouldn't have freaked out to begin with. If you would have had the guts to win the battle of willpower against your stupid Child we wouldn't even have this problem." She knew that she was being unfair, but she couldn't help her thoughts about the whole situation. If you weren't here, everything would have been just fine!

"And if you would have taken better care of Natsuki in your last life this world wouldn't even exist!" The words were like a slap in the face to Nao. She hadn't really expected the other girl to talk back after her last insult, but it seems as if Shizuru had gotten her memory back by now. Still, that didn't make it any better between them. After a battle of death-glares where nobody wanted to give in first, Nao finally spoke what she had thought for so long. Even if the words probably stung herself much more than the other girl. But dignity and pride was something she had lost a while ago. Nothing mattered anymore anyway now that Natsuki was gone.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't able to catch her after her true love was selfish enough to commit suicide after one moment of insecurity." She had expected a slap or at least another insult, but Shizuru said nothing. She just stared at her with a blank expression. The chestnut-haired girl didn't bother to conceal any of her feelings or emotions any longer. She didn't care what Nao thought about her. All that mattered to her right now was Natsuki, and she knew that fighting with the pink-haired girl would not help anybody. The silence seemed too dangerous to be broken right away, and so Mashiro decided to wait a little longer for giving the girls some more time to settle their dispute. She knew quite well about the feelings of them, and she had always thought of it as something dangerous. There was no space for love in a world like this. She was amazed that Nagi didn't wipe it out completely. Maybe he doesn't control everything after all... This world is halfway Kuga-san's creation so perhaps not everything is lost... Before the silence could eat away any more of the sanity of the already damaged girls Mashiro finally broke it. "Blaming each other won't help anybody," she said with determination.

"Oh great! A new plan?" Nao asked sarcastically.

"There is no plan. You have to fight her with everything you got, and I am afraid to say this but you might have to face the truth that you have to kill her." Her voice was calm and emotionless as ever, although it pained her to confront the girls with the cruel reality.

"No way!" Nao yelled back in anger. She flinched under the pain as she tried to take a step towards the director.

"She's right...," Shizuru said calmly after she had jumped over to support the injured girl in standing.

"What? Are going nuts again?" Nao's puzzled eyes searched Shizuru's crimson for a sign of sanity-loss, but she didn't find any. After she had found her composure, she freed herself from the other girl's support, and tried to stand up straight again. She really wished she could have just cut off that nasty leg, but her condition was already bad enough.

"Do you really think she wants to be saved at all?" Shizuru asked her out of the blue, still looking directly into the questioning green eyes.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You have no idea how it feels to live with the guilt of having killed so many innocent people, and to top things off, she was the one who wished for this horrible world to begin with." Shizuru's words were calm but intense. The emotions in her eyes showed that she still suffered from the sins she had committed throughout this life and the last. Nao had never thought about it, but seeing the turmoil in those crimson orbs, she suddenly felt at a loss for words.

"But..."

"What if we save her? Are you explaining to her that she has killed all the other HiME? How do you think she'll deal with that?" Shizuru made a pause and inhaled deeply. "Trust me, I've been there. I know the feeling, and I screwed up again. If it wouldn't have been Natsuki who had killed the others it would have been me."

"Or me...," Nao mumbled, still not knowing what to say. She hadn't thought of the consequences. All she had thought about was how to save Natsuki, but after the words of the Kyoto-girl had sunk in she wasn't so sure if saving the raven-haired girl would be a reasonable solution. Still, the fear of losing her completely was something she also couldn't deal with.

"Could you live with that?" Shizuru asked her in a low voice.

"I don't know... I don't know anything at all. Only that I can't live in a world without her. I can't fight her. I can't kill her... I love her so much..." Tears broke free as she whispered the last sentence, and as much as it pained Shizuru to hear those words coming from the mouth of the pink-haired girl, she knew that Nao spoke the truth.

It's true, Nao. I hate you for falling in love with Natsuki, but how could I of all the people not understand that... Our love for her has already claimed so many lives. We have to end it here. Not even love is worth so much pain.

"I know...," Shizuru said in defeat. "And she loves you too."

"Pff, as far as I can tell she's in love with you." Nao's words seemed nonchalant, but Shizuru knew that they ripped the girl's heart apart.

"It doesn't matter anymore, does it?"

"I guess not..." Nao paused before she let her eyes wander off into the darkness again. "Why don't we let this world get destroyed?"

"Because we have these powers for a reason. There's always a reason to fight for good." The words sounded so wrong coming from Shizuru, but that was what she felt right now. Her heart and mind had always been obsessed with nothing other than Natsuki. Only now she had realized that love is more than just holding on. It is letting go.

"I'm beginning to think that you are even scarier without Kiyohime in your head," Nao remarked and was instantly countered with a hiss from Kiyohime. "Alright, alright. No harm done. It's just odd to here you talking about saving the world and its people when I thought of you as the most selfish person on earth."

"Ara, maybe I've learned at least one thing after dying twice." They both smiled, although it was bitter. They knew they had to face their inner demons once more. Neither of them was happy to join forces with the supposed enemy, but they couldn't let Natsuki destroy the world, and they also couldn't let her be destroyed by guilt.

"Nao, let's do our best," Shizuru said with a determined look on her face. Nao only nodded, still not sure if she could bring up the strength to fight the girl that meant everything to her.

"They're coming," Mashiro said as emotionless as possible. She had watched the conversation silently as she could feel the strength of the girls coming back.

"So, what are we going to do?" Nao asked, still unsure about the oncoming battle. The Kyoto-girl looked at her with a serious expression when she started to explain her plan. Mashiro could see how something inside of the Spider-HiME broke as she listened to the words. She was afraid that Nao wasn't ready for it, but Shizuru was right with her plan. This might be their only chance. If one of them were to fail or to give in to their feelings everything would be over.

The hammering footsteps of the mechanic wolf could be heard in the distance. The purple colored canopies started to sway under a strong wind that seemed to announce the oncoming storm.

Shizuru turned around to Nao once more before she materialized her naginata. "I'm ready to let go. Are you?"


A/N: Wow, only two more chapters...So, in the week before Christmas it'll be over. What a nice present