I toyed with the concept of removing this little side story, it sure caused me enough trouble. My intention was to make Haruka a bigger character, but in the end I feel it just detracts from the overall experience. I may still remove it later, but for now here is I Promised chapter 12.

Shizuru lay in bed enjoying Natsuki's warmth next to her. It was the last day of their 'vacation' and she wanted to enjoy every minute of it. She took in the smell of her hair, the soft skin of her thigh, the feel of her firm stomach. If there is a heaven, this must be it.

Natsuki stirred, her green eyes opened and, before she could speak, her mouth was engulfed in a passionate kiss. She turned her body to make it more comfortable and returned the kiss, the familiar fire that Shizuru sparked in her burned and she lost herself in it.

The kiss broke and they were left breathless in each other's arms. Shizuru smiled down at her dark-haired lover, relishing the blush on her cheek. "Good morning, sweetheart."

"Good morning, bella." Natsuki yawned and stretched. "You make an amazing alarm clock, Shizuru. I want you to wake me up like that every morning for the rest of my life."

"That's going to be hard to do from my bedroom, but I'll think of something." She mulled it over for a moment before she snapped her fingers. "I know, telepathy. That's a thing, right?"

Natsuki laughed and put her arms around her girlfriend. "No, that's not a thing." She grew serious. "What would you think of moving in with me, though? We can get a bigger place if you don't like the one I'm in."

"Moving in together, isn't that a bit sudden?"

"I don't think so. We've been dating for a few years now and, after this trip, I realized that I want to go to sleep with you every night and wake up to your beautiful smile every morning. I want to eat breakfast with you then head to work where I'll sit behind a desk and count the hours until I can see you again. Then, after a hard day's work, I can come home and you'll kiss all the stress away. It'll be perfect."

"Father won't let me do anything until I graduate, but that's this year so after that I'd love to move in with you. Of course, I'll be working too, at my own law firm. Just like father."

"I'm going to have to steal you from your father, then."

"You already did, why do you think he doesn't like you?"

Natsuki pouted her lips slightly, an expression that Shizuru found adorable. "I thought he liked me."

"If it was up to him I'd still be dating Reito."

Natsuki shivered. "I can't imagine what that would be like. He's so...stuck-up." Natsuki cleared her throat and continued in her best impression of Reito. "Oh, I didn't see you there, I was too busy staring at myself in the mirror." Shizuru broke out into laughter and Natsuki kissed her bare shoulder. "I love you, Shizuru."

"I love you too, Natsuki, but what I'd love right now is some breakfast."

-IPR-

"Yukino, there you are." Haruka had been looking for Yukino around the estate and found her in one of the back rooms looking at an old rifle. "Do you like it?"

Yukino turned around slowly, "It looks old." She ran her hand along the stock and noticed a name carved into it, 'Diana'. "Real old."

"She belonged to my great-great grandfather. He named it after his wife Diana Armitage and it was passed down to his daughter, my great-great aunt also named Haruka Armitage. She took it with her when she served in Japan and quelled the Samurai Insurrection. When she returned, she kept it here in the house and never used it again." Haruka walked over to a chest in a corner of the room and pulled from it an old, cracked picture of two women. One of them looked very much like Haruka. "That's her, and the other one is her lover. They met while she was in Japan and fell in love. My mom would always tell me the story, how Armitage women are always strong."

"She was right." An idea struck Haruka and she grabbed the rifle from it's stand. "What are you doing?"

Haruka dug through the chest and withdrew an ancient box of ammunition. "I'm going to do something I always wanted to do. I'm going to shoot this gun."

Yukino followed Haruka into the living room where Shizuru and Natsuki sat on the couch together. Natsuki didn't react when she saw Haruka with a gun, Shizuru did. "What are you doing with that?"

"I'm going to shoot it."

Haruka explained simply, Shizuru and Natsuki followed her and Yukino out of the back door. Haruka stopped a good distance from the house and set the box of ammo on the ground, taking out of the box a single large shell. She slid it into the rifle and cocked the handle. She raised it up to her shoulder and looked down the sight. Yukino wrung her hands in worry.

"Haruka, that gun is over a hundred years old. What if it doesn't shoot?"

Haruka pulled the trigger and the hammer struck the powder, all three of the girls covered their ears from the sound. Their ears still rang. The kick of the gun knocked Haruka to the ground. She dropped the gun and held her ears, drops of blood flecked through her fingers.

Natsuki was the first to recover from the blast. "Wow, that was ridiculous."

Shizuru had buried her head in Natsuki's shoulder, she looked up at her. "What? I can't hear anything."

Yukino was dazed. When she noticed Haruka on the floor she thought the worst, but when her hearing returned she noticed Haruka was laughing. Haruka was still laughing when she sat up, twin streams of blood running from her ears. Yukino knelt beside her. "Are you okay?"

"That was awesome." She cradled the rifle across her lap. "I feel so powerful, like I could take on the world. Does anyone else want to try?" The other girls shook their heads with wide eyes. "Fine, have it your way."

Shizuru's eyes tried to follow the bullet's trajectory but was blocked by brush and the woods. "I wonder if you hit something."

Natsuki shrugged. "There's no way to tell from here, we'd have to go into the woods and find the bullet."

"Forget that, I'm not traipsing out into the woods." Haruka took the rifle and the box of ammo and walked towards the house rotating her shoulder and muttering to herself.

As soon as Haruka was out of earshot, Yukino sighed. "Why can't I have the relationship with her that you two have?"

Shizuru responded, "Have you asked her?"

"Well, no. She could never accept me like that."

"You never know unless you try."

-IPR-

The four girls sat around the dinner table and ate the casserole that Shizuru had made for them. None of them spoke until Natsuki put forth a question that had been on her mind for a while. "What do you intend to do after graduation?"

Shizuru assumed that Natsuki had been asking her. "I'm going to go to law school and open up my own practice."

Yukino was prepared with an answer. "I've always wanted to be a teacher."

Haruka had been planning for her future since she was a little girl. "I'm going to go to business school so I can take over the family business after my father retires. What about you, Natsuki? What are your plans?"

Natsuki hung her head, "To be honest, I don't really know. I've been thinking about it for a while and I just don't know. I don't have a family trade or anything that I'm especially good at."

Shizuru smirked, "I can think of a few things you're good at." Natsuki blushed. "Like taking care of your motorcycle. You fix it yourself, don't you?" Natsuki nodded, "You could do that."

"Be a mechanic? I don't know."

"You could always be my housewife, you know stay at home and take care of the kids." Shizuru touched her chin in a thoughtful pose, "Except that you're a terrible cook, and you're not great at cleaning. Now that I think about it, you'd be a terrible housewife."

"Just how are we going to have kids, Shizuru?"

"A surrogate." Natsuki didn't pry any further, only finished what was on her plate and got up to serve herself more. Shizuru grabbed her by the arm and held her, "Natsuki, you've already eaten two plates. Maybe you should slow down."

Natsuki's eyes narrowed, "I'm still hungry." She said slowly, enunciating every syllable. "What are you trying to say, exactly?"

Shizuru smiled an innocent smile. "I'm worried about your health, darling."

Natsuki wrenched her arm from Shizuru's grip, set the plate on the table and stomped towards their bedroom shouting "I can't believe you think I'm fat."

Shizuru followed her into the room pleading with her to calm down while Haruka laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation and Yukino cleared the table. When she was done she laid down on a couch in the main room of the cabin and stared up at the ceiling when she felt something tap on her leg. She curled up and Haruka sat on the couch next to her. "Are you alright? You were staring off into nothing for a while."

"Haruka, there's something I want to ask you, but I don't know how you're going to react."

Haruka sighed. "Yukino, don't." She looked at the floor. "Just don't. I love you, Yukino, but not in that way. I don't want you to be angry with me or hate me, I just want to be friends with you."

Haruka buried her head in her hands, much as she was doing now, and was surprised when skinny arms wrapped around her. "I could never hate you, Haruka, and I understand. I just want to be by your side."

I just want to be by your side.

-IPR-

Haruka looks up to find that she's alone in the room. "Yukino?" Her eyes widen as she gets up off the couch. "Yukino?" The kitchen is empty and so are both bedrooms and the bathroom. She starts to panic, "Yukino!?"

She finds Yukino facing away from her in the hallway. "Oh thank god, I thought you had left." She turns her around and immediately recoils, covering her mouth to supress the scream that threatens to burst from her. Yukino's face is gone and the rest of her begins to dissipate like a mist in a stiff breeze.

"I just want to be by your side."

Her body dissipates fully and she can no longer contain the scream that escapes her. "Holy shit, I really am going crazy." She fumbles around the living room, knocking over her tv and coffee table looking for her phone. She finds it and tries to dial Shizuru, if anybody could make sense of this then she could. The phone rings, rings again, rings a third time and Haruka throws the phone across the room. "I've got to get out of here."

She roots around until she finds her keys and runs out of her apartment at full sprint. "It's five-fifteen, so Shizuru must be at her appointment. I need her help if I'm going to make it through this." She finds her car parked where she remembers it being and struggles to put the key in the lock. She looks around her and noticed that the world seemed to be getting brighter, as if she were staring into headlights.

Her breathing is fast and her heart is racing as the key finally turns and she rips the door open and slides into the driver's seat. The engine hums on and she slams it into reverse, tearing out of the parking lot and barely making the turn onto the street.

She barrels through traffic at high speed as the world continues to get brighter, blinding her. The sounds of honking and engines seem distant and she begins to feel like she's floating before she feels the impact and is sent through the windshield that she can no longer see or feel. The car strikes the light post and turns on it's side, rolling end over end several times before coming to rest upside down in the middle of the street.

-IPR-

"Would you care to continue?"

Shizuru is shaken from her experience and struggles to pick up the next part of her story. "I suppose the next step is graduation."