Categories > Anime/Manga > Mai HiME > Resolution
Author's Notes Author's Notes
Fairly uneventful Prologue, as mine tend to be. Not a lot to say, except this:
I've not been flamed yet on this story, but as a preemptive strike: Please do not flame. Here, or anywhere. Anonymous flames here will be deleted. They are not helpful in the least, and are in fact counter-productive to writing well (confidence is important). Constructive criticism or honest opinions about your dislike of the story are perfectly welcome, but hyperbola in expressing the point really isn't warranted.
As always, thanks so much for reading! (If one were to look very closely, one might be able to observe Vega's small form dancing on top of a table with a "reader is god" shirt on rather than doing his writing).
--
Chapter one
It's been a while / My Letter #1
It was dark by the time the conversion van's headlights illuminated the lonely string of beachside cabins, but of them, only Midori was at all tired; the chaos within the van had gradually given way to casual, airy conversation, just loud and interesting enough to keep everybody awake-except, it seemed, for Midori, who nearly passed out at the wheel about an hour down Route 260. They had noticed when the van began sneaking towards the rather deep ditch by the side of the road, and it had started them shouting, which did nothing to wake the girl up. (Just) before they had died, Reito had managed to grab the wheel and convince Midori to pull over long enough to let him drive the rest of the way. It turned out that he was actually an adequate driver, which was lucky, since none of the rest of them knew a clutch from an emergency brake.
As Reito carefully slid the van into one of the few remaining parking slots, Mai turned to Mikoto. "Excited?"
"Excited!" the girl echoed cheerfully. "Excited, excited, excited!"
"Me too. I haven't had a vacation from work in..." Mai sucked her lip between her teeth and chewed a little pensively.
"In a long time," Shizuru Fujino said from the back seat, shaking her light-brown hair out of her face and stretching a little as the car jerked to a stop a little roughly. From the front seat, Reito shouted, "Sorry about that. I think I killed it."
"It's no problem," Shizuru replied politely, and then looked back at Mai. "You haven't stopped working since school was called back, have you?"
Mai frowned, still chewing her lip. "I guess not. I didn't actually /mean /to work that much, I just-"
"Mai just wanted to get away from me," Chie quipped as Midori groggily got out and opened the door for them. "She knows that if she doesn't, I'll never stop hounding her about Tate."
Both Mai and Tate coughed when she said this, though neither said anything. Mai got out, and as soon as she did, she heard Aoi and Chie burst out laughing. I thought she said she would lay off for the trip, /Mai thought. /I told her I'd tell her when something happened. Not that she wouldn't know before /I /did if something happened between us.
In actuality, the situation between Tate and Mai had remained more or less in stasis since last year: Mai had a half-kiss and a spur-of-the-moment declaration by the boy of, "I love Mai!", both of which had been acquired at around the same time, to treasure, and that was it. There had been nothing since. It was hard, with Shiho attached to his arm /all the time/, clinging
like/ a stubborn baby/
like a stubborn cold to him, undoubtedly more than a little to make sure that what Mai had was all she would ever have with the boy. Shiho had Tate's image firmly embedded within her heart, and as far as she was concerned, he was hers so long as he didn't fling her off. Mai bore it with all the patience that she had learned over seventeen years of taking care of her sick brother, but sometimes, she just wanted to...
smack/ the little- /
to do something that she would most certainly regret for the rest of her life, and that she would thus never even consider actually doing, ever.
Her half-pensive state was disturbed, rather rudely, as the/ /stubborn /(baby) /cold's small pink shoe impacted solidly on her rear, half-knocking her into the car ahead of her.
"Move, please!" came the ex-cripple's cheery voice as Mai struggled to recover her temper and her bearings at the same time. Shortly after, Tate chided her as an exasperated parent or brother might, but not harshly. Never harshly./ /
Mai grumbled a, "Sorry," and stepped aside, rubbing her now-aching rump with one hand as the rest of the car piled out quickly, spreading out and stretching with the forced isolation one can only be grateful of after spending four or five hours in a car with your best friends. Reito walked around to the back and opened up the full trunk as Mikoto located Mai and started rubbing the older girl's rump, too.
Mai's eyes flew open and her attention flew back into the present, and she jumped into the air with a startled cry as Mikoto burst out laughing again. "Are you excited?" the little girl quipped, and for a moment, Mai stared at her, dumbfounded by her rare display of sharp verbal wit. Then she got over it and tore off after the little shit, who took off running, throwing her arms up in the air and shouting, "Mai's excited, all right, yes she is!"
Reito laughed in an incestuously brotherly way, walking over to Tate. The fake-blonde was presently being made to lug not only his luggage, but Shiho and /her /luggage, and the strain showed on his face. Even Kendo, which was strenuous by its very nature, was not enough to prepare him for the torment on his back that was Shiho /and /her luggage.
"I suppose we're relatively secluded, then, eh Tate?" he said to the boy, grinning with pursed lips. "Being two of the only three males on the trip."
"I suppose," Tate replied a little guardedly, as he had been the boy since Mai and he had begun doing...whatever it was they were doing. Reito had been turned down by Mai, and while he didn't display any outward malice at the rejection, that meant very little. "Why?"
"Oh, just thinking about our old roommate days. You know..."
Tate did. Reito and he had, as most male roommates did, an unspoken agreement to sod off if there was a signal left on the door that the other was in there with a girl, in private. Did this mean Reito was planning on...with Mai? Or somebody else?
"Sure. Not a problem. Just leave my /shinai /on the door. It's a good reminder for me to practice. Who...?"
"Who knows?" Reito said with a shrug. Outwardly, he was a very brotherly figure, very benevolent, kind, and intelligent, but Tate knew from experience that he was a little bit of a letch on the inside. He didn't let it show often, and never to women, but guys could usually tell who was who among even the most guarded of them.
"What are you guys talking about?" Shiho asked from Tate's back, sounding as confused as Tate was, though for entirely different reasons. He had entirely forgotten she was back there for a second, obviously considering the screaming strain on his back to be just another ugly face of gravity.
"I'm just speaking Guy at Tate," Reito said, smiling warmly. "Most civilized beings don't understand the language."
"You're weird."
"Forgive me," Reito said, bowing slightly. "You may, however, wish to let go of Tate before his back snaps. You're as beautiful and trim as a lady, but I think your brother is about to die. He needs to work harder at Kendo."
"Shiho, take your luggage and go follow the girls, okay?" Tate pointed at the cabin they were to inhabit, a small log cabin like all the others, mounted on small risers with a long stairway and a ramp leading to the doorway, and one window per face. "I need a rest."
"Hmph," Shiho grimaced, a little disheartened. She dropped off his back, though, and did as he asked. After she was out of earshot, Tate looked the other boy in the eye. "Sometimes I think she understands a lot more than she lets on."
"Almost certainly. She is very clever, even if she never shows it; I'm sorry if I was too blunt."
"I don't think she understood that, but she certainly understood that we wanted to get rid of her, and she'll give me hell for it. So make it fast."
"Denying it would be useless, I suppose. I want to talk to you openly."
"I knew that."
Reito smiled humbly. "I'd like to make amends with you; we know that if we both actively seek Mai's affections, no good will come of us sleeping in the same room with only Kazu to buffer us. Therefore, I would like to propose that for the trip, neither of us make any overtures towards her."
Tate frowned. Not that he thought it would make a difference, but something about it irked him. Maybe the way Reito said it, so easily and without reservation. Nonetheless, he nodded. In truth, he missed the boy, who had acted as something of a father-figure for him during the year they'd roomed together, all the way up until the point where he was revealed to be an ancient, evil creature stealing Reito's body. "All right. I won't make any moves on Mai if you won't." Not that it would matter. Shiho would be sleeping in the next room, so his chances of sneaking off with her even if she was the sneaking-off type were nil.
Even so...
Reito stuck his hand out, and Tate took it, pumped it once. "I'm glad you...you know."
"I know. Things have been a little awkward between us, and we both know why. Until we settle into this, they will remain that way, and I don't like that."
"Me either."
"I'll inform Kazu when I get a chance."
They nodded at each other, and then shouldered their bags, closed the trunk, and locked the doors.
--
The cabin was as small inside as it was outside, but at least it had two bathrooms. It was essentially a square space divided into two rectangles, separated by a thick wall. Both sections were identical, containing an entryway, a bedroom, and a bathroom with a shower. The girls slept in one, the boys in the other. It was cheap and still proper-two things one did not often find in coed lodgings.
It was also, Natsuki Kuga noted, completely empty. Her senses were still keen, even after all the time it had been since she'd fought...well, anything, and she heard nothing coming from any orifice of the cabin. How could that be? Hadn't she just stepped out for a little air? Where had everybody gone?
No. Not completely empty. Somebody was breathing heavily in the girl's bedroom. Breathing heavily and sobbing.
She wished she had a gun. She had one in her bag, one which her formerly all-encompassing streak of paranoia had forced her to go out and buy off of one of her old connections-guns were illegal in Japan-almost the week after she'd lost her powers (as everyone else had) as a HiME, but that was also /in /the room. Buried deep in her bag.
Nothing to do, though, but investigate. She stepped in the door and removed her shoes, or tried to: She had no shoes to remove. That wasn't right; she must have had shoes, she had just been outside. The fact, however, remained that her feet were bare, and a little chilly. She felt a draft on her crotch, and closed the door behind her.
She stepped inside and walked quietly along the well-sanded floor, which creaked under her weight only a little, towards the bedroom she shared with eight other people, and opened the door quietly, not wanting to disturb any of them on the off-chance that they /were /there.
Only none of them were there. Just as she'd observed, the place was completely empty.
What the hell is...
/ /No, not completely empty. Just as she'd observed. There was one person at the corner of the room, buried deep inside of a sleeping bag. All she could see was a fluff of light brown hair sticking out of the opening.
Shizuru./ /This was rapidly becoming dangerous. Even more so as the bag began to move towards her, and then slowly slid off of the thin, pretty girl, revealing her to be completely naked. Natsuki's eyes widened in surprise, and she quickly lowered her gaze as the girl moved soundlessly across the bedroom towards her.
Before Natsuki could move further, though, Shizuru was on her, wrapping her arms around the shorter girl's waist, pressing her bare breasts against her, warm and soft...
Warm?
Soft?
Natsuki looked down and found herself to be completely naked. She cried out in surprise, and Shizuru covered Natsuki's mouth with hers, her eyes wide open, staring into Natsuki's, which widened in
lust
fear.
Natsuki pulled her mouth away quickly, embarrassed and blushing, and shouted, "Shizuru-"
Shizuru's head exploding, her pretty brown hair decorating the carpet across the room-
/ /Natsuki sat bolt upright and shouted, "No!"
"Natsuki," Chie said groggily, "Keep it down. Some of us are trying to sleep."
Natsuki froze, looking around at the eight girls around her as her heart raced madly in her chest and she struggled to separate the dream from what was real.
She looked over at Shizuru, sleeping peacefully in the corner with a small smile on her face, and exhaled heavily, forcing herself to relax, to sleep again.
It didn't work. She didn't go back to sleep that night.
Fairly uneventful Prologue, as mine tend to be. Not a lot to say, except this:
I've not been flamed yet on this story, but as a preemptive strike: Please do not flame. Here, or anywhere. Anonymous flames here will be deleted. They are not helpful in the least, and are in fact counter-productive to writing well (confidence is important). Constructive criticism or honest opinions about your dislike of the story are perfectly welcome, but hyperbola in expressing the point really isn't warranted.
As always, thanks so much for reading! (If one were to look very closely, one might be able to observe Vega's small form dancing on top of a table with a "reader is god" shirt on rather than doing his writing).
--
Chapter one
It's been a while / My Letter #1
It was dark by the time the conversion van's headlights illuminated the lonely string of beachside cabins, but of them, only Midori was at all tired; the chaos within the van had gradually given way to casual, airy conversation, just loud and interesting enough to keep everybody awake-except, it seemed, for Midori, who nearly passed out at the wheel about an hour down Route 260. They had noticed when the van began sneaking towards the rather deep ditch by the side of the road, and it had started them shouting, which did nothing to wake the girl up. (Just) before they had died, Reito had managed to grab the wheel and convince Midori to pull over long enough to let him drive the rest of the way. It turned out that he was actually an adequate driver, which was lucky, since none of the rest of them knew a clutch from an emergency brake.
As Reito carefully slid the van into one of the few remaining parking slots, Mai turned to Mikoto. "Excited?"
"Excited!" the girl echoed cheerfully. "Excited, excited, excited!"
"Me too. I haven't had a vacation from work in..." Mai sucked her lip between her teeth and chewed a little pensively.
"In a long time," Shizuru Fujino said from the back seat, shaking her light-brown hair out of her face and stretching a little as the car jerked to a stop a little roughly. From the front seat, Reito shouted, "Sorry about that. I think I killed it."
"It's no problem," Shizuru replied politely, and then looked back at Mai. "You haven't stopped working since school was called back, have you?"
Mai frowned, still chewing her lip. "I guess not. I didn't actually /mean /to work that much, I just-"
"Mai just wanted to get away from me," Chie quipped as Midori groggily got out and opened the door for them. "She knows that if she doesn't, I'll never stop hounding her about Tate."
Both Mai and Tate coughed when she said this, though neither said anything. Mai got out, and as soon as she did, she heard Aoi and Chie burst out laughing. I thought she said she would lay off for the trip, /Mai thought. /I told her I'd tell her when something happened. Not that she wouldn't know before /I /did if something happened between us.
In actuality, the situation between Tate and Mai had remained more or less in stasis since last year: Mai had a half-kiss and a spur-of-the-moment declaration by the boy of, "I love Mai!", both of which had been acquired at around the same time, to treasure, and that was it. There had been nothing since. It was hard, with Shiho attached to his arm /all the time/, clinging
like/ a stubborn baby/
like a stubborn cold to him, undoubtedly more than a little to make sure that what Mai had was all she would ever have with the boy. Shiho had Tate's image firmly embedded within her heart, and as far as she was concerned, he was hers so long as he didn't fling her off. Mai bore it with all the patience that she had learned over seventeen years of taking care of her sick brother, but sometimes, she just wanted to...
smack/ the little- /
to do something that she would most certainly regret for the rest of her life, and that she would thus never even consider actually doing, ever.
Her half-pensive state was disturbed, rather rudely, as the/ /stubborn /(baby) /cold's small pink shoe impacted solidly on her rear, half-knocking her into the car ahead of her.
"Move, please!" came the ex-cripple's cheery voice as Mai struggled to recover her temper and her bearings at the same time. Shortly after, Tate chided her as an exasperated parent or brother might, but not harshly. Never harshly./ /
Mai grumbled a, "Sorry," and stepped aside, rubbing her now-aching rump with one hand as the rest of the car piled out quickly, spreading out and stretching with the forced isolation one can only be grateful of after spending four or five hours in a car with your best friends. Reito walked around to the back and opened up the full trunk as Mikoto located Mai and started rubbing the older girl's rump, too.
Mai's eyes flew open and her attention flew back into the present, and she jumped into the air with a startled cry as Mikoto burst out laughing again. "Are you excited?" the little girl quipped, and for a moment, Mai stared at her, dumbfounded by her rare display of sharp verbal wit. Then she got over it and tore off after the little shit, who took off running, throwing her arms up in the air and shouting, "Mai's excited, all right, yes she is!"
Reito laughed in an incestuously brotherly way, walking over to Tate. The fake-blonde was presently being made to lug not only his luggage, but Shiho and /her /luggage, and the strain showed on his face. Even Kendo, which was strenuous by its very nature, was not enough to prepare him for the torment on his back that was Shiho /and /her luggage.
"I suppose we're relatively secluded, then, eh Tate?" he said to the boy, grinning with pursed lips. "Being two of the only three males on the trip."
"I suppose," Tate replied a little guardedly, as he had been the boy since Mai and he had begun doing...whatever it was they were doing. Reito had been turned down by Mai, and while he didn't display any outward malice at the rejection, that meant very little. "Why?"
"Oh, just thinking about our old roommate days. You know..."
Tate did. Reito and he had, as most male roommates did, an unspoken agreement to sod off if there was a signal left on the door that the other was in there with a girl, in private. Did this mean Reito was planning on...with Mai? Or somebody else?
"Sure. Not a problem. Just leave my /shinai /on the door. It's a good reminder for me to practice. Who...?"
"Who knows?" Reito said with a shrug. Outwardly, he was a very brotherly figure, very benevolent, kind, and intelligent, but Tate knew from experience that he was a little bit of a letch on the inside. He didn't let it show often, and never to women, but guys could usually tell who was who among even the most guarded of them.
"What are you guys talking about?" Shiho asked from Tate's back, sounding as confused as Tate was, though for entirely different reasons. He had entirely forgotten she was back there for a second, obviously considering the screaming strain on his back to be just another ugly face of gravity.
"I'm just speaking Guy at Tate," Reito said, smiling warmly. "Most civilized beings don't understand the language."
"You're weird."
"Forgive me," Reito said, bowing slightly. "You may, however, wish to let go of Tate before his back snaps. You're as beautiful and trim as a lady, but I think your brother is about to die. He needs to work harder at Kendo."
"Shiho, take your luggage and go follow the girls, okay?" Tate pointed at the cabin they were to inhabit, a small log cabin like all the others, mounted on small risers with a long stairway and a ramp leading to the doorway, and one window per face. "I need a rest."
"Hmph," Shiho grimaced, a little disheartened. She dropped off his back, though, and did as he asked. After she was out of earshot, Tate looked the other boy in the eye. "Sometimes I think she understands a lot more than she lets on."
"Almost certainly. She is very clever, even if she never shows it; I'm sorry if I was too blunt."
"I don't think she understood that, but she certainly understood that we wanted to get rid of her, and she'll give me hell for it. So make it fast."
"Denying it would be useless, I suppose. I want to talk to you openly."
"I knew that."
Reito smiled humbly. "I'd like to make amends with you; we know that if we both actively seek Mai's affections, no good will come of us sleeping in the same room with only Kazu to buffer us. Therefore, I would like to propose that for the trip, neither of us make any overtures towards her."
Tate frowned. Not that he thought it would make a difference, but something about it irked him. Maybe the way Reito said it, so easily and without reservation. Nonetheless, he nodded. In truth, he missed the boy, who had acted as something of a father-figure for him during the year they'd roomed together, all the way up until the point where he was revealed to be an ancient, evil creature stealing Reito's body. "All right. I won't make any moves on Mai if you won't." Not that it would matter. Shiho would be sleeping in the next room, so his chances of sneaking off with her even if she was the sneaking-off type were nil.
Even so...
Reito stuck his hand out, and Tate took it, pumped it once. "I'm glad you...you know."
"I know. Things have been a little awkward between us, and we both know why. Until we settle into this, they will remain that way, and I don't like that."
"Me either."
"I'll inform Kazu when I get a chance."
They nodded at each other, and then shouldered their bags, closed the trunk, and locked the doors.
--
The cabin was as small inside as it was outside, but at least it had two bathrooms. It was essentially a square space divided into two rectangles, separated by a thick wall. Both sections were identical, containing an entryway, a bedroom, and a bathroom with a shower. The girls slept in one, the boys in the other. It was cheap and still proper-two things one did not often find in coed lodgings.
It was also, Natsuki Kuga noted, completely empty. Her senses were still keen, even after all the time it had been since she'd fought...well, anything, and she heard nothing coming from any orifice of the cabin. How could that be? Hadn't she just stepped out for a little air? Where had everybody gone?
No. Not completely empty. Somebody was breathing heavily in the girl's bedroom. Breathing heavily and sobbing.
She wished she had a gun. She had one in her bag, one which her formerly all-encompassing streak of paranoia had forced her to go out and buy off of one of her old connections-guns were illegal in Japan-almost the week after she'd lost her powers (as everyone else had) as a HiME, but that was also /in /the room. Buried deep in her bag.
Nothing to do, though, but investigate. She stepped in the door and removed her shoes, or tried to: She had no shoes to remove. That wasn't right; she must have had shoes, she had just been outside. The fact, however, remained that her feet were bare, and a little chilly. She felt a draft on her crotch, and closed the door behind her.
She stepped inside and walked quietly along the well-sanded floor, which creaked under her weight only a little, towards the bedroom she shared with eight other people, and opened the door quietly, not wanting to disturb any of them on the off-chance that they /were /there.
Only none of them were there. Just as she'd observed, the place was completely empty.
What the hell is...
/ /No, not completely empty. Just as she'd observed. There was one person at the corner of the room, buried deep inside of a sleeping bag. All she could see was a fluff of light brown hair sticking out of the opening.
Shizuru./ /This was rapidly becoming dangerous. Even more so as the bag began to move towards her, and then slowly slid off of the thin, pretty girl, revealing her to be completely naked. Natsuki's eyes widened in surprise, and she quickly lowered her gaze as the girl moved soundlessly across the bedroom towards her.
Before Natsuki could move further, though, Shizuru was on her, wrapping her arms around the shorter girl's waist, pressing her bare breasts against her, warm and soft...
Warm?
Soft?
Natsuki looked down and found herself to be completely naked. She cried out in surprise, and Shizuru covered Natsuki's mouth with hers, her eyes wide open, staring into Natsuki's, which widened in
lust
fear.
Natsuki pulled her mouth away quickly, embarrassed and blushing, and shouted, "Shizuru-"
Shizuru's head exploding, her pretty brown hair decorating the carpet across the room-
/ /Natsuki sat bolt upright and shouted, "No!"
"Natsuki," Chie said groggily, "Keep it down. Some of us are trying to sleep."
Natsuki froze, looking around at the eight girls around her as her heart raced madly in her chest and she struggled to separate the dream from what was real.
She looked over at Shizuru, sleeping peacefully in the corner with a small smile on her face, and exhaled heavily, forcing herself to relax, to sleep again.
It didn't work. She didn't go back to sleep that night.
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