Natsuki walked into the abandoned lab where Midori had once resurrected M.I.Y.U. Most of the ceiling was in huge chunks scattered around the floor and the walls all lent outward ready to fall at a moments notice. No one had rebuilt this place it seemed.

Standing proud dead centre of the room was St. Valas. He was encased in crystal and every few seconds his prison pulsed with artificial life. Extending from the huge crystal mass where thousands of strands spanning the whole room and beyond. White floating balls of light dangled from the strands, dancing and swaying softly to a non existent breeze.

"So you figured it out then?"

She whirled to find Fumi hands clasped demurely in front of her standing next to a crumbled wall. the white light played across her face giving her a ghostly appearance. She was once again clothed in her ridiculous pink maids outfit which Natsuki found hard to be intimidated by.

"I think so, I didn't know for sure until right now" She nodded, her voice normal.

"How, may I ask?" the maid inquired politely.

"Well, you actually, I had no clue up until the test speech where you said 'I hope everyone gets what they wish for' which made me relies that I didn't slip into a parallel dimension but that mine was changed" She took a deep breath and was distracted by the light shining on her hands. "Mai would wish to be married to Tate and Mr Nakamura would wish he never brought his family to Fuuka..." She looked pale and ghostly just like Fumi. "I started to suspect it was you when I realised that you were the only one that was sad." It was when she saw the maids outfit in the fetish shop that reminded her of Fumi's old uniform that she realised that the old maid was the only one that wasn't happy.

"Ack," Fumi lightly tapped her pale hand against her forehead reprimanding herself "I see, to make me happy I would have to have brought Mashiro back but I knew it wouldn't have been real so..."

"There's still a few things I don't get though" she wanted to see if the other woman would explain it to her as she didn't seem to be ready for a fight "the accident I was in should have killed me so why I'm I here and the truck drivers not?"

"Accident?" Fumi's face for the first time lost her pleasant mask to become thoughtful "you were in an accident that should have killed you...? Ah so that's why your wishes never came true, you must have been out of the equation when I made St. Valas cast the illusion."

"But why am I here?" this was one of the things that really bothered her. She was starting to feel as if she wasn't real and the fact that the pale light made her seem almost transparent didn't do anything to calm that notion.

"The only reason I can think of for you being here and the truck driver not was because someone wished you here and there was no one who wished for the driver." Fumi stepped closer to her closing the distance between them to a few feet. Natsuki tensed ready to fight.

"Can I see what people wished for?" it was a crazy urge but she thought she knew who it was who saved her.

"Yes that's what the lights are. You have just to say the persons name but," Fumi stopped her "remember wishes are very personal things it would be like reading someone's dairy."

She nodded she understood that she just didn't care "Fujino Shizuru" the web like creation shuddered and one small light broke away. She walked over to it when it didn't come to hover in front of her like she expected. She reached out to grab the light but found that it had no substance. It was like compressed smoke so she leaned closer and squinted against the glow. She could make out silver writing that crawled like a long grey caterpillar around the light.

She read it and sank to her knees. She didn't think it was possible to love Shizuru more but she was wrong. Her heart broke at how she had been so self involved and unintentionally hurtful to the other girl. It was evidence of the pure unselfish devotion Shizuru had for her and of the torment she put her through.

Fujino Shizuru wishes for her love to be acceptable and for Kuga Natsuki to be happy.

It did explain a few things that had bothered her. Shizuru would halved wished for her to be happy and she would have thought to make her happy she would want her mother back. but Shizuru didn't know her mother only what she had told the other girl of her. Like how she made the best home made mayonnaise ever and how she smelled of strawberries and loved to meddle and play match maker. Shizuru had no way of knowing that her mother hated tomatoes and never made dinner when she could order take out or that she never trimmed the lawn because Natsuki had never told her. That wasn't really her mother. She was only Shizuru's wish.

Shizuru probably thought her wish would mean for her love of Natsuki to be acceptable and for her to be happy to receive it instead of her loving Reito who if he was any more acceptable would have his own religion. She wiped her nose on her sleeve uncaring of Fumi's grimace at her gesture. She was more resolved now than ever. "Why? How?"

"Mashiro wasn't human her powers were different. She gave me some to carry out her last order, no," her voice changed but with an emotion that Natsuki couldn't identify "her first request; Please make sure there're happy. And that's why. How? I used Mashiro's power to help Yukariko summon St. Valas and trapped him the same way the Obsidian Lord trapped Mashiro and from there it was all him."

She thought furiously about how Mashiro escaped her crystal prison but she was dead at the time it occurred and was just so happy to be back she didn't bother with the details. She was once again been punished about her lax attention span.

"How do I stop it?" well, the maid had been helpful so far...

"Stop it? Kuga-san everyone's happy here. Why would you want to stop it?" Fumi did looked genuinely confused.

"Because you can't give people what they want and make them happy. All it does is make them want more," she also tried to come up with another less selfish reason to destroy this wishverse "besides its not real and eventually its going to fade, look at St. Valas..." the Child seemed strained beads of sweat forming on his neck and his expression was strained or at least she thought if a horse/chess piece could have a strained expression that would be it.

"I'll find a way to keep it going," Fumi's face was spector like and her eyes burned with an other worldly light. Her voice was fevered and Natsuki knew that she would be of no more help.

"I'm sorry Fumi-san but..." She wished for a way to shatter this illusion. Her hands glittered and a scythe like weapon appeared in her hands. Well, that was pretty self explanatory.

"Kuga-san! Don't do this! You, yourself are only here because of a wish!" She reached for the other girl desperately. She couldn't bare to fail her mistresses last request "if you destroy St. Valas now you will die!"

She blinked. She hadn't thought of that..."I don't care," she raised the scythe ready to swing.

"Then you leave me no choice!" Fumi's hands also glittered and a scythe mirror image of hers materialised before her. What worried her was that Fumi grasped the weapon with a familiarity that she lacked. Hadn't Midori said something about Fumi's element being a-oh crap.

"AHHHHH!" she ducked and rolled away from Fumi's mad charge and desperately swung the scythe in hopes of parrying the maid's ferousicous attacks. She ducked and dodged and tried her best not to be sliced to pieces. Fumi's skill far out matched her own with a scythe and she thought it unfair she couldn't fight with her guns.

"Why would you destroy this Eden!?" Fumi swung the scythe at her with enough strength and speed that in made a 'whoosh' noise as it flew over her head. "This demi-paradise!"

"Because I really hate seeing Shizuru with Reito!" She swung the scythe like an axe and the force at which it reverberated as Fumi blocked it numbed her arms. It was only by pure stubbornness that she managed to keep her grasp of the weapon. Really couldn't a few bullet holes destroy the crystal prison just as well?

She lunged to the left but not quickly enough as Fumi's scythe embedded itself in her shoulder. She wailed in pain tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Even dying didn't hurt this much.

"Gomen Kuga-san but I can not allow you to destroy this earth of majesty," Fumi's voice was quite and intense in a way that only a true zealot could speak as she jerked the scythe upwards and ripped through Natsuki's shoulder cleanly. She didn't even have time to contemplate this knew area of pain when the scythe was unceremoniously shoved into her stomach. She curled around the blade as much as she could, it was the only thing that kept her upright. She couldn't feel her feet. She wanted to speak but blood filled her mouth, for some reason she still gripped her own scythe weakly, she commanded her hand to let it go but her body didn't obey.

"I promise you Kuga-san that I will make them happy," Fumi's eyes were sad as they stared into hers and for the second time in her young life Natsuki felt what it was like to die.

…Her death seemed to take a rather long time. Even Fumi who still hadn't removed the scythe looked to be a bit impatient. She was all set to go tragic yet heroic pose, blood trailing down her mouth and eyes glazing over but she seemed to hang there suspended in time. On her way to dieing yet not quite there.

She was rather annoyed actually.

"Kuga why aren't you dead yet?" Fumi's brows furrowed she to was ready for the other girl to die having said her last words solemnly.

"I don't kn-" and suddenly she did know which made her grin even wider "because dying wouldn't make me happy." She smiled at Fumi feeling as if the big bully's own joke had turned on her.

"Wha-ohm" Fumi's eyes widened in realisation. Shizuru's wish.

Fumi pulled her scythe free but before the other woman had time to get her guard up Natsuki had hit her hard across the jaw sending her stumbling off to the left of her. She hobbled her way to St. Valas hunched over her still bleeding stomach. It hurt but she made it gritting her teeth.

She once again raised the scythe and Fumi scrambled from her knees trying to stop her but she brought it down on the crystal prison with the remainder of her strength. The glowing cavern twinkled and shuddered casting ghostly reflections over both woman's faces. The last of Natsuki's strength left her and she fell to her knees before toppling over onto her side. All she could see was Fumi's horrified face caught by the wishes that sparkled like stars then violently died as Natsuki made the world explode.

XxXx

A/N: have one question for you; Did Natsuki have the right to do what she did? It was the Perfect World every one was happy except her so did that give her the right to destroy it?