It has been awhile since I posted anything on ffml, so let's hope this works.  *crosses fingers*

Cass



Disclaimer: You know I don't own Haruka and Michiru.  If I did, do you think I will be slaving in my part-time work?

Since this fic is about Haruka and Michiru, you should have guessed that it will have hints at lesbianism (yuri).  :-)
And ANGST alert!

C&C are most welcome.  Send them to chiaty@singnet.com.sg
My webpage: Http://web.singnet.com.sg/~chiaty/fanfics.htm
Flames will be used to warm up my freezing toes.

I'd like to thank my mom and GSL, beta reader extraodinaire.  GSL's encouragement keeps my love for writing alive, so this is for you, GSL.

Oh and the title is really tentative.  I'm terrible at naming my fics.  If anyone can think up of a better title, pls send it my way, ok?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

WEEKEND WARRIOR   by Cass
---------------


Crouched behind a tree, Tenoh Haruka waited for her pursuer to approach.  The moments stretched on endlessly, yet her prey did not appear.  Had he sensed her trap?  Were he and his buddies surrounding her at this very moment?  Or maybe he hadn't seen her run in this direction?  Her fingers tightened their hold on the gun.  That weapon could very well be the deciding factor in her survival today.  Relying on her teammates would be sheer foolishness, for out here in the wilderness, it was everyone for themselves, just the way Mother Nature designed it.

Soft footsteps crushing the dry leaves underfoot alerted her to the approaching prey.  She adjusted her position slightly and took aim, her lips curling to an almost smile.

The prey clutched his own gun in a death grip, his fear so strong that it seemed like a physical presence wrapped around him like a coat.  His noisy steps bellied his status as a rookie.

Haruka felt a surge of sympathy over this inexperienced one and almost wanted to let him go unharmed.  <Almost,> she thought as she squeezed the trigger.

Bang!  As though in a movie, he slowly crumpled to the ground, his hands releasing the gun.  Panting harshly, he glanced at the wispy clouds moving overhead.  <I thought it would rain today,> he thought irrelevantly as his view was blocked by the threatening figure of Haruka in fatigues.  She grinned and that particular expression of triumph and fascination with his plight sent shivers down his spine.

The scent of his fear and her adrenaline mingled into a potent rush, a feeling she had never felt before without her Sailor Uranus disguise.  She inhaled deeply this unique scent, wanting to savour the moment but realised that the gunshot would have alerted the others to her location.  <No matter> she thought as she ran, <there are others just like him>.

When he could no longer see Haruka in the distance, he stood up shakily, looked at his red stained shirt and grimaced.  <I must really be watching too many horror movies.  For a moment, I really thought she was going to kill me.>  For the second time of the day, he shivered again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Still feeling triumphant over her easy kill, Haruka strolled along.  If all her enemies were so easily defeated, she would be back home in no time.

Unfortunately, so caught up was she in the self-congratulation, that she almost missed the sudden sound overhead.  Realising what was going to happen, she tried to scrambled away.

And failed.  With a whoosh, the enemy jumped down from his cover and wrapped an arm around Haruka's waist.  His other hand clutched at her throat.

Haruka panted as she wrestled free of the soldier's lethal grasp.  Moving several steps away until she caught her breath, she smiled at him.

His eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "What are you laughing--"  The rest of the sentence was cut off as Haruka launched herself straight at him, causing him to step backwards in order to regain his balance.  Next, several punches to his stomach served to leave him winded and in pain.  Never easing up on her assault, she tripped him.  Before he could get up, she had picked up his weapon, dropped earlier in the scuffle, and fired once.  He groaned - the sound reflecting his disappointment, rather than pain.  Seeing the front of his jacket rapidly turning red, she started to back away.  However, he started to sit up, ignoring his chest wound.  Shocked, Haruka fired again.  That only caused him to shout in outrage, "Hey!"

Realising that the soldier wouldn't stay down, she tossed away the gun.  Improvising, she reached into her jeans pocket for a penknife.  The slim blade reflected the sun's glare for a split second before it slashed at the enemy's chest.

Shock turned into fear as the attacker dropped his gun and whimpered.  Looking terribly pale, he pressed both hands onto the cut and whimpered again.  "Please don't-"

Growling, Haruka shot him a third time and left without a backward glance.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Minutes later, Haruka found herself under attack from a guy with a ponytail who had ignored the threat of her gun and launched himself at her.  Although he was shot twice by Haruka, he kept on advancing.

<Another one of those that wouldn't stay down!> thought Haruka furiously as she tried to catch her breath after he slammed into her.

Not letting up, he sat on her and used his weight to keep her down.  As his blows rained down on her, she cried out, not in pain but in anger.  With a shout, she plunged her penknife into the enemy's chest cavity.  Then she pushed him away and sat up.

Haruka watched impassively as he tried to breathe, each intake of oxygen only causing him to bleed more, staining the grass dark red.  The hot sun shone mercilessly down on the two, yet he shivered as though he was cold.  Finally, a minute later, he breathed his last breath and was still.

<He deserved it!> Haruka thought defensively.

<Did he?> a tiny voice asked?

<He attacked me first!>

<You shouldn't have killed him.> whispered the voice inside her.

<He kept punching me even after I was down, what kind of>

<You shouldn't have killed him.> interjected the voice.

Haruka rubbed her temple, she could feel the beginnings of a headache.
And the tiny whispers did not help to alleviate the pain.  "Shut up!  SHUT UP!" screamed Haruka.

Suddenly, as though those simple words were magical, her headache disappeared, along with the whispers inside her head.  Haruka breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself.  Two deep breaths later, she thought she heard a single drum beat.  She closed her eyes and focussed her hearing.

Without the distraction of her enemy's wheezing noises as he tried to inhale and those irritating whispers, Haruka could hear the beating of many drums, sometimes fast and frenzied, sometimes steady and yet with an undertone of tension.  It was the siren call of the jungle, calling her to battle, calling her to fight.

How could she have not heard it sooner?  Smiling, she blocked out all other noises of the jungle and listened attentively to the battle call.  Swaying to the hypnotic beat, she grabbed some mud and drew two vertical brown strips, one on each cheek.

And now... Tenoh Haruka would fight.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Michiru walked soundlessly out of her cover and aimed her gun at the back of the fidgeting figure ahead.  The enemy hadn't noticed his impending doom.  <An easy kill,> she thought.

"Surprise!"

Michiru jumped in fright as the voice came from behind her.  She turned her head slightly to glance at the male aiming his gun at the small of her back.

"I wouldn't move any further, Michiru," warned the man.

She glanced back at the 'easy kill' only to find his gun too pointed at her. Faced with enemies in front and behind her, what was she to do?

Haruka looked on worriedly from her perch on a tree branch.  If she didn't act soon, Michiru would die.  That alarming thought fuelled her into action. Removing the gun from her waist, she pointed it at the man behind Michiru. From this distance and angle, it would be impossible to kill him with a single round.  But it would buy Michiru time to disarm them.

Haruka closed her left eye and aimed, her finger slowly squeezing the trigger.  <But Michiru is the enemy - your enemy!>

Startled, she released the trigger.  <Michiru is not my enemy.  We're partners.>  Images of them battling monsters of every shape and size flooded her mind.  Yet the armband Michiru was wearing now clearly marked her as one of the other team.

<No!  She wouldn't betray me, betray us!  She believes in the cause.>

<You fool!  She fights for them now.  She has become your enemy and you still try to save her.  You're a fool to trust her even now.  Be careful that she doesn't put a bullet in your back.>

<No!  I don't believe that.  I won't!>

Suddenly, Michiru's earlier speech that morning replayed in her head, "Looks like we're on opposing sides this time, Haruka."

<Is Michiru a friend, a comrade in arms or isn't she?  Argh!  This is giving me a headache!  But if I don't help her now, she'll die!>

An aborted scream and the thud of a body falling alerted her to concentrate on the scene before her - the decision whether to aid her aquamarine-haired friend or not, was taken away from her.

Haruka watched as Michiru pivoted on the spot and kicked the man behind her. She quickly shot him in the chest and then whirled back to check if her other opponent was down for the count.  Waving goodbye to the bodies, Michiru left.  After waiting until she was out of sight, Haruka shimmied down the tree and left as well - in the opposite direction.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The next soldier she met seemed as if he would be more comfortable with a computer keyboard than with his gun.  Still, she did not hesitate to pump his body full of lead.  He jerked several times but remained standing.  Growling in anger and frustration, the blond warrior threw away her ineffective gun and attacked him with her knife.

Eyes widening in fear, he backed away until his body touched the trunk of a tree.  Arms in the classic posture of surrender, he tried to protest, only to get impaled before he could utter a single word.  Hands closing over the wound, he coughed, spitting out blood and a small yellowish oval object.  Then he slowly slid to the ground, panting harshly.

Haruka's eyes widened at the sight of the oval object.  So that's what this new enemy is!  A variation of Professor Tomoe's daemon seeds.  With a start, she turned back to the bleeding soldier.  She removed his bandanna and placed the cloth over his wound, trying to stop the endless bleeding.  "Don't worry, you'll be alright."

He looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and distrust.

"I'm sorry but a daemon had possessed you and I had to stop it.  I'm so sorry, Seiki."  Inwardly, she was surprised that she actually knew his name but try as she might, she couldn't remember how she had known.  Her headache returned with a vengeance, as if there were little men stuck inside her brain and were trying to beat their way out.  She shut her eyes tight and moaned.

When she next opened her eyes, the empty gaze of Seiki's eyes greeted her.  Scrambling away from his corpse, it was all she could do to keep from screaming.  She had killed an innocent!  She, one of the protectors of Earth, had murdered a human.  Her bloodied hands were proof of that.

Her sight zeroed in at the blood, the life-force of a human being, on her hands, until it was all she could see.  The pounding of her head increased in speed and in intensity, each beat a reminder of what she had done, until all she could feel was the pain.  When darkness came, she welcomed it with both arms.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
[Flashback]

Haruka screamed, her terror reverberating throughout the mansion.

"Haruka?  Are you alright?" asked Michiru.  Searching fingers found the light switch for the desk lamp.  Its orange glow embraced the two women like old lovers.  Despite her worried expression, Michiru looked deliciously rumpled in her nightgown, her tousled curls seemingly begging to be caressed.

But Haruka failed to notice, as she drew a shallow breath after another.  Trembling fingers combed through her short blonde hair, dampened by the humid night.  She hugged her knees to her chest as the last vestiges of her nightmare disappeared to the approaching dawn.

"Haruka?"

Wild, fearful eyes gazed back at her for a moment, not registering her presence.  Before the worried Michiru could comment, Haruka seemed to regain a semblance of her former self-assured self and smiled back.  "It's just a dream.  Sorry I woke you."

Her lover shook her head.  "What did you dream about?"

<I dreamt you were dead.>  "Nothing much.  Go back to sleep."

Gentle fingers stroked her face, as Michiru kissed her forehead, then her nose.  "You sure?"

<I dreamt I killed you.>  "Yes.  Now sleep or else you'll get eyebags," teased Haruka.

Michiru smiled as she slid back inside the covers, a hand reaching for her love as she closed her eyes.  Haruka shifted so that her right arm was loosely embracing the half-asleep woman and waited for daylight.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Michiru peered up at the glaring sun, shielding her eyes with her hands.  The end was near, she could feel it singing in her veins.  With each step forward, she was closer to victory.  The combat game would soon be over, then she would be able to escape this heat.

"Come on you two, keep marching forward.  Don't try any tricks,"
warned Michiru.

"Oh come on, Michi, just pull the trigger and be done with it already," whined the girl with long unruly bangs as she scratched at her mosquito bites.  "At least then, I'll be able to find a nice cool spot to rest."

"No.  You two are my shields," she replied matter-of-factly.

"I could have shot you earlier, if not for Miko.  Why did I end up with such a useless partner?" grumbled the man who looked like a character from one of those kung-fu movies, with his muscular physique, buzz cut and a bandanna tied around his head.

"Humph!  You were the one who wanted me to be your partner in the first place, T," retorted Miko as she blew at an offending lock of hair covering her left eye partially.

"That was before I realised you were a klutz."

"Say that again, T?  I didn't hear it."  Miko smiled sweetly at her partner but her eyes flashed with anger and a promise of imminent harm.

Michiru sighed.  "Come on, guys.  Act like good little hostages and we-"

"Michiru?"  A tentative, frightened whisper from the trees above startled the bickering duo and their captor.  "Help," the voice whispered urgently.

They glanced up at the direction of the voice and saw the scared brown eyes of Eriko peering down at them.  Abandoning her perch on a thick branch, Eriko slithered quickly down the tree trunk.  "We have to get away now!  It's not safe!" she pleaded, ignoring the minor cuts from her harsh descent as she glanced around nervously.  "She might come back and kill us all!"

"What?" was the bewildered reply from all three.

"She's gone crazy!  I saw her kill Sam.  I was sitting on the tree branch like just now, and she didn't see me.  But I saw her!  She killed him!"  The petrified young woman cried out as tears slid down her cheeks.

"What are you talking about, Eriko?" asked Miko in a tone reserved for calming down agitated children.

"She just pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the back."  Pale hands mimicked the stabbing action repeatedly.  "All I could do was watch from my position in the tree.  I couldn't stop her.  "There was so much blood...  Why did she do it?  It's just a game.  It's supposed to be a game!  Sam just fell and stopped breathing.  Sam's dead!" she screamed hysterically, hands tearing at her hair.

The three exchanged bewildered glances.  "She's snapped.  Post-exam stress," whispered Takashi as his index finger pointed to his head and made tiny circles.

"I don't think so," replied Miko haltingly, her gaze drawn to a vague shape resting behind a tree to their left.

"That's just a shadow," replied Takashi as he took long strides towards it.  His cocky grin faded as he beheld the corpse of his roommate, its legs akimbo and its left arm outstretched in a final plea for help.  Bile rising up his throat, Takashi staggered back a few steps and vomited out the remains of his breakfast.

Alarmed, Michiru and Miko walked towards Takashi and gasped.  Sobbing, Miko buried her face onto her friend's chest, willing herself to forget the burning image of Sam's face twisted permanently into a grimace of pain.

Michiru looked away, sadly.  There would be time to mourn for the loss of a friend later.  She gently pushed Miko away and approached Eriko, who had refused to move from her spot.  "Who?"

"Haruka," came the soft, frightened whisper, as though the mere mention of the name would bring the killer back here.

<NO!  Not Haruka!>  Steadfastly believing in her partner, friend and lover, Michiru stared angrily at the witness.

Cringing back, Eriko whimpered but refused to take back her accusation.
"I saw her face.  For a moment, I thought she saw me too."  She trembled at the memory of those crazed eyes.

"Where was she headed?" asked Takashi, deliberately turning so that he would not have to view the corpse.

"Towards the house."

Immediately, Michiru slid on the Sailor Neptune persona, as easily as wearing a second skin and took charge of the situation.  Her detached cool expression and air of confidence demanded everyone's attention.  "All of you, stay out of sight.  Prevent anyone else from entering the house.  I'll find the murderer."  She smoothed her pants and tied her hair into a simple ponytail.

"Wait!  I'll go with you," demanded Takashi.  "Sam's my roommate."

They stared at each other for several long seconds.  Takashi visibly flinched as he felt her probing gaze penetrate right down to his soul and revealed the truth.  "You don't know what you are getting into," her eyes seemed to convey.

"No.  You should stay here with Miko and Eriko.  Warn everyone who is heading this way about the situation.  Besides, I need someone to watch the house in case the murderer got through me and decided to backtrack."

Relieved and yet insulted, Takashi couldn't stop himself from protesting.  "You can't handle it alone.  And can you really bring yourself to stop Haruka?"

"I'll do whatever it takes to capture the murderer...  Whoever it may be."  With that final sentence, Michiru sprinted towards the house.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Taking a deep breath, Michiru kicked open the front door and rushed inside.  Only silence greeted her.

After checking the possible hiding places, she glanced at the flight of stairs leading all the way up to the fifth floor.  There was no where else to go but up.  Cautiously, she ascended, knowing full well, that she was an open target.  As she walked up, events happened earlier that morning replayed in her mind...

[Flashback]
"Remind me again, why are we here in this mosquito hell at this ungodly hour?" complained Miko to the others.

"Because we had been so stressed over the exams and this combat game would be a perfect stress reliever," explained Sam.

"Why can't we just go catch a movie instead?" retorted Miko.

"It'll be fun," chirped Seiki, the computer nerd in the group.

"Seiki?  You, of all people, want to play a war game?  I thought you would prefer to fight behind the safety of a computer screen," teased his roommate, a baseball player.

"Hey!" was his outraged response while the others laughed.

Later, everyone drew lots to determine which of the two teams would they belong to.  Michiru smiled as she held up her slip of paper with a blue circle drawn on it.  "Looks like we're on opposing sides this time, Haruka."

Haruka looked at her own slip of paper with a red circle drawn on it and smiled.  "Indeed, we are.  Want to have a small wager on the side?"  Her eyes twinkled mischievously.

Her partner replied without the slightest hesitation.  "Sure.  Whoever's side loses, she will have to be the slave for a day."

Although the speaker's expression was bland, Haruka knew what sort of thoughts were running through that stunning beauty's brains.  Haruka wanted to leer at her partner but settled for a knowing look instead.  "Agreed."

"Well, then.  Haruka, be prepared to call me 'mistress'."

[End of flashback]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stop at the next floor.  Quickly scan the surroundings.  Kick open the first door and duck, in case bullets come flying towards her.  Enter and search the room.  Repeat procedure for the next three rooms on that level.  Wish that she could transform into Sailor Neptune and gain the extra speed, strength and agility as well as her weapon, instead of relying on her ineffective gun supplied by the combat game's crew and  her fighting skills.

Yet realising at the same time, that it would be difficult to explain Sailor Neptune's presence in the house when only Kaitoh Michiru, famous violinist and artist and the murderer were supposed to be inside.  Abandon that futile wish, walk up the next flight of stairs and continue.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Half an hour later, Michiru was left with the last floor to search.  Would she find Sam's killer there?  Or had the killer left already?
She stubbornly refused to even admit the possibility of the killer being the blonde cocky racer, refusing to give the killer a name.  Even so, a memory surfaced unbidden...

[Flashback]

"There is no peace.  Never.  Every time we think the enemy has been defeated, that we can finally be normal people living out a normal existence - some new enemy surfaces out of the woodwork.  And we fight."

"Haruka," whispered Michiru, as she moved to comfort her.

Although the blond accepted her embrace, the former's body remained tense.  "Don't 'Haruka' me!  You know it's true.  We fight.  We die.  We are resurrected, only to fight another battle.  The cycle never ends.  The battle is never truly over.  So don't tell me to relax and enjoy the 'peace' when there is none."

[End of flashback]

A doubt began to grow in her mind.  Could Haruka really have killed Sam?  Maybe she was reminded of the battles with Nephrenia, Sailor Galaxia, and reacted to the threatening presence of Sam clutching a gun, albeit a gun filled with blanks that burst upon contact, creating red, washable spots.

<No!> she screamed mentally.  Haruka was her partner, her best friend.  She should not be accusing the blonde senshi of murder.  <I know Haruka, just like I know myself.  There is no way...>  However, just like a resilient weed that proved impossible to remove completely, the nagging doubt remained embedded deep in Michiru's mind.

<One final step before reaching the fifth floor.>

The violinist lingered for a few seconds, remembering the warm smile the blonde reserved just for her, the teasing feathery light touches that set her ablaze, the way Haruka had reached out for her in their final battle against Galaxia.  She clutched these precious memories tightly and bound them close to her heart.  Steeling herself, she took the final step towards uncovering the truth.

Michiru scanned the area quickly, her body and senses on full alert.  There! Huddled in the far left corner, a figure who had hidden his face in his folded arms.  She took a step towards him and froze as she caught sight of a penknife, its blade dirtied with blood.  She must have made a sound because the figure stirred and peered up at her.

For several long tense moments, the two stared at each other.

"Haruka," whispered Michiru, in horror and disbelief.  She glanced at her lover only to find the same emotions reflected back at her.

Choking back the nausea and the tears, she tried to speak, to say that she knew Haruka wasn't the killer, that Haruka had merely found the knife, witnessed the senseless act, that reality was never as bad as it seemed.

But Haruka never gave her the chance.

She had picked up the blade and ran like the wind towards the nearest room.  The door slammed shut with a loud bang, locking Michiru out.  Reacting instinctively, the most ladylike of all Sailor Senshis took off at a run and banged the door with her shoulder.  It took her two tries before the door finally gave way.

But alas, she could only watch dumbly as her lover leapt out of the window.

"Haruka!  Haruka!  Haruka!  Haruka!"

Only when the agonised screams had ended, did she realise that they were from her own throat, so animalistic and heart-breaking that she could not even recognise them.

Michiru sank down to her knees in shock.  There was no way her love could have survived the fall.  As Sailor Senshis, they could leap out of a building three times taller and walk away with narely a bruise.  But without the added protection of their uniforms and the magical objects, they were as fragile as every other human.

A full minute passed before she had composed herself enough to walk towards the window.  She gaped as Haruka dusted herself off and took off towards the cover of the trees.  Her heart soaring, Michiru dashed down the stairs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tenoh Haruka leaned against a tree, her left hand covering her injured thigh.  She could see fluffy white clouds overhead, slowly moving, constantly shifting their shapes.  Somehow, seeing this constant presence in the sky soothed her heart.  Entranced, she watched as one rabbit-shaped cloud transformed slowly, becoming more ovalish and finally forming the vague shape of a sword.  Aghast, she looked away.

<Was this how it was supposed to end?> she pondered.  A guardian angel becoming one of the monsters she detested?  How could she ever be one of the protectors of the Moon Princess, of Earth, after taking innocent lives?  There were no new daemons possessing the bodies of her classmates, only her mind creating monsters out of thin air, breathing life into her innermost fears and hatred, just like an author breathed life into his characters.

Sam.  Seiki.  Kyosuke.  Victims of her paranoia.  People who had thought her to be their friend, had trusted her until the last moments of their lives.  She had betrayed their trust, just like she would betray the Moon Princess and Michiru sooner or later.

There was no choice, no decision to make.  Just as their blood mingled on the blade, so would hers.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Haruka!" shouted Michiru in a near panic.  Every moment of non-response from her lover only added to the Neptune Senshi's alarm.

She ran forward desperately, hoping that her voice would reach Haruka, that somehow Haruka would come to her.  "Haruka!"

"Haruka!"

No.  She would not panic, would not let the tears fall.  Not while her love, her soulmate remained missing.  She would find Haruka and then tell her that the latter was loved no matter what, that together they would overcome anything.  They had came back to life, hadn't they?  If cheating death came so easily to them, then there was no obstacle they could not overcome.

"Haruka!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

As though Michiru's fervent wish had came true, the grim, tall blond staggered forward and into the former's line of sight.  Relieved, the long haired woman could only stand there, waiting for Haruka to make her way into her outstretched arms.

Time seemed to drag on as Haruka took a step and another.  But finally, finally she was in Michiru's arms.  Clutching Haruka tightly, Michiru whispered prayers of thanks to all the gods she had ever heard of, for giving them a chance.  <Thank you.>  She wound her arms even more tightly around the waist of her love, as though fearing that the person she was hugging was merely an illusion that would fade away if she let go.  And apparently, Haruka felt the same way too, for she did not utter a single word of protest, even though the embrace was too tight.

Feeling an odd dampness on her shirt, causing it to plaster itself onto her abdomen, Michiru took a small step away from Haruka.  The aquamarine-haired woman glanced down only to find her shirt bloody.  And on Haruka's shirt was an even bigger stain, spreading by the minute.  Aghast with horror, Michiru stared at the open wound on Haruka.

Long fingers caught Michiru's chin and lifted it.  The two stared into each other's eyes, both reading each other's emotions and thoughts from the unguarded gaze.

"My heart," whispered Haruka as she stroked Michiru's face.  Michiru nuzzled the palm as tears fell uncontrollably.  "Don't cry, my heart," pleaded Haruka.

With a cry, Michiru once again pulled Haruka into her arms, uncaring of the blood flowing out of Haruka's body and seeping into the fabric of the former's shirt.

As tears, sweat and blood of the two mingled, a helicopter's engine could be heard in the distance, growing louder.



THE END



~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ok, here's where you get to read my ramblings.
Firstly, believe it or not, this fic is based on a dream I had and I've kept it pretty close to my dream, right down to the ambiguous ending.
Why such an ending?  Well, that's cos GSL called me at that moment and woke me up.  So you can blame that on her.  Besides, I want to leave it up to you as to whether Haruka gets saved or not.

And the reason why I'm thanking my mom, is not just because she gave birth to me (although that is reason enough) and not because of Mother's Day.  You see, she always told me to write down my dreams cos they're weird and someone might enjoy reading them someday.  So now, you know.

Cass

15/5/2000

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