--by Michiru

For the Love of Michiru

"I can't go on," Haruka panted.
"Why not?" Michiru whined.
"It's too much! I'm tired!"
"We just started!"
"I'm tired and I hurt."
"Your toe? I"m sorry, I didn't think, honey. Here," Michiru said, leading the beautiful, tall blonde to a bench.
"I'm just not made for shopping," Haruka smiled at her fiancee. To Haruka, Michiru was the most beautiful person in the world. She seemed like a goddess from the sea. Today was no exception. She wore a simple pleated skirt, which she swore was a kilt. Haruka just shrugged and thought it was a pretty skirt, slit up the side and held with a big safety pin. It showed off her slender waist and sexy legs.
Her pretty purple blouse was sleveless, and had sort of a scalloped front... Huh? Haurka thought.
"Isn't that Yaten's blouse?"
"Shirt," Michiru said. "Yaten doesn't wear blouses."
"When did that stop? I'd like to see that."
"Haruka!"
"Oh, yeah," Haruka grimaced. "She stopped wearing a shirt when we found out that Yaten was a big fat liar."
"It's not everyday that boys tell you they're girls to see how you'd react."
"Hmmph. You still want to sleep with him," Haruka pouted.
"As much as you'd like to sleep with Taiki," Michiru said conversationally.
"Ah- uhhh... point taken."
"You just rest here while I go into the bank. I want to get a few more dollars. We'll get some take out and take it home."
"Can't we just go hoooome?"
"Don't whine."
"My tooooooooe huuuurtsssss!!!!"
"Haruka, you only banged it. The doctor said it was fine," Michiru said over her shoulder as she walked toward the bank.
"Still hurts," Haruka crosswed her arms over her chest, and pouted. She did her best boy act; a big pout, slouched on the bench, legs spread. Michiru would have kicked her. She could almost imagine the conversation.
"You might not be a lady, but you're a girl," Michiru would say, indignant.
"So what?" She answer with a shrug.
Michiru would forget what she was saying because the shug would move Haruka's torso suggestively. They'd... no, that wouldn't be the way it'd end.
"So girls don't spread their legs wide for everyone to see."
"You never seem to mind," Haruka would leer.
Michiru would turn a bit red in the face, and Haruka would chuckle. ichiru would puch her knees together, and Haruka would get no nookie that night.
Haruka groaned inwardly, and put her knees together, but kept her lower legs apart. That girl has a way of getting to me. Even when she isn't here!!
A sudden wail of a siren brought her out of her musings, and shesaw it pull up at the bank front. It was followed by about eight others.
Haruka got up, a sudden anxious feeling settling into thepit of her stomach.
"What's going on" She asked an officer, lightly.
"There's a hostage situation, here, sir. Maybe you should clear the area," he suggested, paying only half attention to her.
Hostage?! Michiru!!!

Michiru acted at once. She got down and put her hands on her head. Haruka would go nuts. At least she hadn't taken anything out of the bank yet, and she had had her packages sent home.
"Everyone stay down, and you won't get hurt," The man in the grey suit said calmly. Michiru was inclined to do as he asked.
"Cops!" One yelled out.
"Shit," another swore.
"No problem. We'll just be here a little longer," th one in charge said.
Someone in the bank started to cry, and Michiru went from feeling a touch put out by the circumstances, to feeling a bit scared.
"Ok, ladies and gentlemen, I want all of you to come over here, and sit here," the man genstured to an area. You could see the outdoors from there, including the police. The police could see them, and weren't likely to make any sudden moves.
"I wanna go home," a woman sobbed softly.
"I think it'll be a while," Michiru told her. "Just sit back, and don't make any sudden moves." Haruka was going to be scared to death. Now if only she could keep from getting to frightened, things would be ok.

"It's been three hours! Can't you do anything? Or are you so used to sitting o your fat asses, picking your nose and comparing boogers, while eating doughnuts, that you've forgotten how?" Haruka raved at the Seargeant in charge.
"Listen, mister, I don't take crap off anyone!!"
"Except your own fat butt! I'm not a mister, I'm a miss! I'm a damned girl! Damnit, she'll never get out of there safely with unobservant people like you in charge!" Haruka threw her arms up.
"Can I shoot her?" One of the officers pleaded.
"Don't temp me," the seargeant replied darkly, glaring at the upset girl.
"You people are so innefectual! I could get her out easier than this!! Ow!" She cried, stubbing her toe. "Damned broken toe," she snapped, even though she knew it was only sprained.
"I wish you would-" he stopped as a shot rang into the air. Every officers gun oriented on the building.
"Miiichiii!" Haruka cried.
The sargeant called the robbers on the phone line they had set up.
"What happened. We are trying to get you the helicopter. The hour wasn't up, you shouldn't have shot- I see," he added coldly. He hung up.
"What happened, Sarge?"
"A woman panicked and tried to run away. They shot her."
"Michi," Haruka whispered, closing her eyes. She blinked back tears. She was not hurt. She knew she would know it if something happened to her. She slipped away from the crowd, and went to the back of the building. All those idiots just farting around.
The officers in the back were talking and eating doughnuts. Haruka slipped up to the building easily.
She couldn't believe her luck. There was a brick holding the security door in the back open. Someone going out for a smoke, perhaps? Hopefully they heard the commotion and got away. They might even have been the one to call the stupid cops.
She walked into the building without a sound, and made her way down the hallway. She got to the door, and dropped down to her knees, peering around the corner.
Three men were talking in a low tone, while the hostages were in front of the front desk. Haruka saw a few sea green tendrils of hair, and long legs from behind the desk.
"What happens if the helicopter isn't here?"
"We kill a hostage."
"When?"
"In about twenty seconds," he smiled dangerously.
"Great!" The third guy grabbed a red headed girl out from the hostages. There were about eight in all.
The girl began to scream hysterically. "Hey sweets, you pick where you want the bullet!" He grinned gleefully.
"Please don't kill her," a familiar voice pleaded.
Haruka watched as Michiru got up.
"Why do you have to kill? Why don't you give up? You can't keep us here all day, and the more you kill, the more trouble you'll get into."
"She's got a point, boss," the second guy said thopughtfully.
"Too much so," the man in the gray suit lifted his gun and pulled the trigger.
Haruka watched in horror as the gun went off. The man's arm jerked slightly. He had a cruel, cold smile, and his eyes were black and souless.
Michiru slammed backwards into the desk, and blood splattered everywhere. The red headed woman becan to scream again. Michiru crumpled slowly to the floor, a lifeless heap.
Haruka died inside.
The only thing she could think of was vengence. Her love was gone, and it didn't matter anymore hat happened to her. Her life was over when the bullet hit Michiru's head. She knew Michiru had tried to dodge the bullet, but it was a lot faster than her, and it hit the side of her head. She could see Michiru's blood staining the stone floor of the bank.
Haruka got up, and walked out of her hiding place. The three men were now consulting each other, not looking in her direction.
She picked up one of the steel posts, the thing that cordoned off areas, detatching the fuzzy rope from it. She quietly put down the rope, and walked purposefully toward the men, not hiding her intentions a bit. The other hostages looked at her puzzled.
She swung the metal pole with every bit of her strength at the man who had killed Michiru. It hit him solidlyly on the back of the head. She fancied she heard a crunching sound.
The other two men looked at her in surprise. She took a step foreward, to hack the second guy, and stubbed her toe. The flare of pain brought her to her knees, as she heard a shot. The guy behind her fell, the man in front of her having shot his partner, though he had aimed at her.
Ignoring the pain for a moment, she brought the pole up, and hit the last man under the chin, then in the stomach. When he hit the floor, she hit him on the head.
The phone picked that moment to ring. She walked over to it, and answered it.
"And that," she breathed heavily into the reciever, "is how you handle murderous thieves." She dropped the phone, not hanging it up, and crawled ovr to Michiru.
Her face was pale, and she had a look of surprised pain on her beautiful face. "Michi," Haruka said softly, her tears overflowing. "You left me. You said you'd never leave me, and now you're gone. And they didn't kill me, too. I wanted to die, too. I want to be with you," she took Michiru's limp body into her arms, and cried into the soft, fragrant hair.
She heard the police come into the bank, but ignored them. A paramedic went over, and checked Michiru's pulse, looking grim. She ignored him as well.
"Miss? Miss!" A hand shook her. She looked up. Her life was over, broken in a heap. Her heart could never meand, and these jerks couldn't leave her alone? Couldn't they see she was grieving.
"You have to let us take her, miss."
"You'll have to bury us together," she said gruffly.
The Sergeant came over, and the ambulence attendant spoke to him a moment.
"Haruka, right? You said your name was Haruka," he said, squatting beside her.
"Hmm," she murmured, nuzzling Michiru's hair.
"You have to let us tke Michiru to the hospital, or she might die."
"Too late. We're already dead," Haruka murmured.
"Michiru still has a pulse. She's still alive. For now. You have to let us take her to the hospital, or she will die."
"She's... alive? But she was shot in the head!"
"Nonetheless, she's alive," he said, gently prying her from the limp body.
Haruka watched Michiru closely, and was rewarded by seeing her chest expand in a shallow breath. "MICHIRU!" She cried.
The paramedics bundled her on a stretcher, and took her top the ambulance, Haruka right behind. She crawled into the back with Michiru, and held her hand all the way to te hospital, and until they kicked her out of the emergency room.

"Hey, hon."
"Grandma!" Haruka cried, wrapping her arms around the tough old woman.
"How is she?"
"Alive. I don't know how, but she's alive!"
"I hear you're being given an award."
"For what?"
"Bravery, and getting the bad guys," her grandmother waggled her eyebrows.
"Bravery? I wasn't brave. Just... there was nothing left. I wanted them to hurt for what they did to Michiru, and I didn't care what happened to me. I thought she was gone, and that was all that mattered."
"But you went in in the first place. I'm proud of you, 'Ruka. Not many people would do that, even for love. They would be too scared for their own skins."
"My skin doesn't matter, next to Michiru;s safety. I failed her."
"Don't be an idiot. I'd bet that not once did she expect you to save her. She's a smart cookie, Haruka. You have to keep her."
"She's my life. Grandma, how do you live without garndpa?"
"Honey, I'm going to destroy a belief of yours. Very easily. I never loved him, honey."
"What?"
"I had another love. But I married him, and had his children. And yes, I regretted it every moment. Until you came along. Yu were the best thing about my life. I was sad when your grandpa died. We were pretty good friends. But wewere never in love."
"Never?" Haruka looked curious.
"Haruka, you're a lot like the female child I never had. You're life what I would have been in this age. I was forced into becomming a lady. But I'd rather had been a gentleman. I was a tomboy, but in my time, that was frowned upon. I knew the moment I saw you, the day you were born, that you'd be like I was. I did everything in my power to make sure you grew up, expressing yourself the way you wanted to. You're like my daughter, or my friend, more than a grandchild," she hugged Haruka closely. "I stopped regretting my life the moment I saw you. You never would have come. I had your fathr about a year before my lover married. I could have divorced your grandfather and married that person, but I'm glad I didn't."
"Why? I still would have come along."
"First of all, Haruka, my love was a woman."
"Oh!"
"Second of all, she married into wealth. Greater than my own. She had a son nine months after the wedding. That son got married and had a beautiful daughter named Michiru."
"Michiru's grandmother!"
"Yes," she smiled. "Michi and her grndmother are quite a bit alike. It wasn't meant to be in our generation. But in this generation, it's accepted, and she'll be cherished in our family. And they'll love you like crazy."
"Haruka?"
Haruka looked up. A nice looking man in a business suit stood there. His blonde hair had a faint greenish tinge to it.
"Good afternoon, Mr Kaioh."
"How is she?"
"I don't know. They won't tell me," Haruka said, tears coming to her eyes again.
He sat down on her other side. "I hear you're responsible for getting those men."
"I guess so," Haruka shrugged.
"Thank you. If you hadn't acted swiftly, and I don't care what your reasons were- you did it- she would have died."
"I... just..." Haruka realized she was crying again.
"Thank you," Michiru's father hugged her.
Haruka found herself clinging to the husky man, sobbing into his shoulder. He stroked her hair, and held her confortingly.
"I'm sorry," she said, pulling away, finally. "I'm not a crying. Other than being hurt physically, she's the only thing that can make me cry," Haruka laughed softly.
"She loves you a lot."
"I worship her. She's my entire life."
"Haruka?" A doctor called.
"Is she Ok?" Haruka was on her feet in a flash.
"She's fine, and she's awake and askeing for you. Room 201."
"Thank you!" Haruka called as she ran out.

--by Michiru