Warm

Those of you who have read the Mai-Otome Manga know that it can more or less be described as a humongous glowing ball of pure WTF. One of those series where it's best if you just shrug your shoulders and hang on for the ride.

Despite that, it does have a moment that I believe unequivocally qualifies as being really awesome, and thus I will be writing a fanfic about it. Go me.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Cold.

She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been cold.

Cold in demeanour, cold in her actions, cold in body, heart, and soul.

Cold.

She sometimes pondered, with neither irony nor humour, how it could be that her, a princess of flame, could feel so cold all the time.

No. No, that wasn't quite right.

She also had the void. The empty embrace of silence, where she could simply sleep, the black cocoon of nothing wrapped firmly around her, where she couldn't be touched.

Where no one could hurt her anymore.

When called back to the world, she hadn't questioned the situation, the people around her, the command given to fight and destroy.

What did it all matter, anyway?

And so with a barely any effort on her part, she had begun systematically torching the castle around her. She heard the command to hunt down the girls, and had obeyed.

The sooner she finished whatever tasks assigned her, the sooner she could return to the emptiness.

No feeling, no pain, no grief.

Until she saw him.

Saw him stagger to his feet even after the death of two of his companions, saw the fist clench, a long bleeding scar – that scar! – down his arm, saw his eyes…

Those eyes. Those same eyes, always burning with determination, always standing up again after being knocked down…

His eyes.

Images pulsed through her mind, none of them pleasant. Memories of fire, ruin…

"How dare you…?" For the first time in ages, there was no cold.

There was only pain, searing red hot, burning through the scars on her heart, churning and shifting into pure, screaming fury.

"HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME REMEMBER HIM!" Kill him. Kill the one who had torn open the wounds, who had forced her to remember, who had wrenched her from both the nothingness of the void and the frozen silence of the cold.

She barely noticed about the other two people showing up – the young girl, the wounded woman. Her rage was focused now, had a target that she could blast and sear and incinerate until he was nothing more than a scorched mark on the floor.

Tears now, filling her eyes, obscuring her vision of that boy. And through the blurred world, she couldn't help but remember, couldn't push away the pain and torment that stabbed through her heart.

"Mai!" The sound of scrabbled running, a frantic shout.

"S – stay back! I told you not to come here! It's too dangerous!" He had ignored her. The bastard.

"E- everyone's…"

"…"

"…All right. I understand. Give my regards to everyone else back home."

"H – huh? What are you saying? Wait! What are you-!"

"Don't worry, Mai. Just remember, I l-"

The end of the memory, snapped, tapered off like a wisp of smoke. She grimaced. What had he done? She only remembered that it had been… something. Something that had hurt her very much.

A scream of grief and rage tore through her, and now she began to refocus. Down below, she could see the three of them, huddled close together. They cared for each other very much, obviously.

Fools. It would only lead to pain.

And then… she had lost. Kagutsuchi's strike had been blasted apart, the girl in the crimson robes striking, as if she somehow knew about it, the mark on her chest that marked her a HiME.

She had been stunned, dazed for a while. But she had been dragged back to safety by that cat girl… what was her name?

And why did she care? Every time she had tried to force herself past the veil, there had been only agony and suffering. Still she couldn't shake the wisps of memory from her mind, wisps that indicated she'd once had a life filled with plenty and light and love, and her rage only deepened.

And him. Those eyes. Those courageous, determined eyes of the bastard who'd ruined her life and caused so much grief and – what? That was… that sounded wrong.

Why?

And then, before she could stop and ponder, they'd come up again. The boy with his eyes, the girl by his side, and another one. A new one. She didn't know who. She didn't care who.

She would destroy them.

Before she could do anything, however, she saw the girl – Mashiro, wasn't it? – lift her arm and trap the boy. A distortion of reality, causing him to question his life, whether his existence had been worth anything at all.

For reasons she couldn't explain, a jolt of sensation rose in her stomach.

No matter. There were other tasks at hand, such as forcing the two girls with the boy to fight each other. Her masters apparently derived some sort of twisted pleasure from it, but to her it was utterly meaningless. Just burn them to ashes and be done with it.

Until of course, the girls refused. They spoke of love, of refusing to turn on each other, because more than anything the boy they came with would not want that.

Idiots.

"Idiots." She squeezed out through clenched teeth. "Love causes you pain. Love causes you sorrow. If you don't care about anyone… then they can't hurt you."

Let them be destroyed.

"Kagutsuchi!"

And then… light. Bright and piercing, blazing forth from the prison which the boy had been sealed into, cutting through her CHILD as light would dissolve shadows. He had been freed, he was now holding a sword, and… and behind him…

She could have reacted sooner as he lunged, could have moved out of the way, but sheer shock rooted her in place, and then the sword was stabbing through her.

There was pain, but there was also clarity, light flooding the darkest recesses of her memory, tearing through the veils as if they were nothing more substantial than vapour.

And then she remembered. She remembered summer fields, shrieks of laughter, hugs, a dinner table wreathed with friends…

She remembered him.

Her body – no, the prison which had bound her to the world long after she should have passed on – was beginning to crumble away, returning to the dust from which it had been made. But before that, there was one last thing she had to do.

"Thank you." She whispered to the boy. Thank you for freeing me.

And then there was nothing left of her physical frame but ashes, and as her soul pulled itself free with a primal surge of joy, she felt arms encircling her.

His arms.

She opened her eyes, looking up into his face. His eyes still reflected the same quiet confidence she'd always seen in him, and his smile…

"It's been so long…" She smiled. "Yuuichi."

"Yes." His grip on her tightened. "Yes, it has, Mai."

"Mai!" She heard a squeal of delight, and suddenly Mikoto was there too, cuddling up as close as she could to her.

There had been grief, of course, but oh, those moments, far and few in between, far, far outweighed by the joy and delight produced by their love. And after one last look at the world of men she was leaving she buried her head in his chest, closing her eyes and revelling in the feeling.

A warmth, springing from the deepest recesses of her soul, bathing her and soothing away the anguish and pain.

They were together again. Never to be separated.

And all around them was light and music.

Story End

The manga never actually explains what Yuuichi meant by 'distorted memories' so I figured that they just screwed over all their memories to make it as painful as possible while excising the happy ones, which would be why Mai is so bitter and nihilistic until she dies.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Please review.