Ok... I'd have never thought to write a ShizNat fiction. There are so many of them, and so good! But then I had the inspiration to write a war tale, and Natsuki Kruger with Shizuru Viola were just perfect as main characters.
Betareading: thanks to Kevin and Amy for all the precious suggestions and corrections!

Disclaimer: Mai Hime and Mai Otome characters are property of Sunrise.

Terra

"General, we have Natsuki Kruger."

"Well done, Captain. Restrain her only if strictly necessary."

Natsuki raised an arm to protect her eyes. She tried to open them but a surge of nausea forced the blue-haired girl to bend painfully. White flashes danced in front of her, and she had to shut them again, in a vain attempt to stop her head from spinning.

"Who are you…" Natsuki managed to mutter.

"Later, now we need to get you out of here immediately."

Someone raised Natsuki from the floor, but her shaking legs were unable to sustain her body.

She gasped, but the strong hands that were supporting her did not drop her.

"Out of here. Now."

The voice, a female voice, as Natsuki noticed, had a tone of urgency now.

She forced herself to open her eyes.

It was dark, but not so much that she couldn't perceive someone in front of her, two figures, one slightly taller than the other. The shadowy forms of large pillars emerged in the background, but she could not read any of the inscriptions that decorated them.

As they dragged her away, Natsuki barely had the time to look at the floor. It was covered with the same drawings as the pillars.

'Where am I?' she asked herself, while an icy sensation of panic gripped her stomach.

The last thing she remembered was the underground of Garderobe. They were inspecting the damage done by the thing that had turned Miss Maria into a marble statue, when a light had struck her.

'I lost my senses and… where am I now? For sure this is not Garderobe anymore.'

Even if stumbling, she was trying to keep the pace of the people who were still holding her. From the dim light that was spreading in the tunnel, apparently they were rapidly reaching an exit.

Natsuki could see now more clearly the woman in front of her. She had bright carmine hair, cropped short, and she was all dressed up in a black uniform completed with a flank jacket. A handgun was strapped in a holster on her hip and another was firmly held in her grip.

Natsuki winced.

'The war was finished long ago, why is she so heavily armed?'

Nor she could recognize the model of the guns, or the uniform the woman was wearing. She was feeling better with every passing minute, though.

Natsuki let them hold her, and it was only when the tunnel abruptly ended that she struck the hip of the one on her right with all the force she could muster. A muffled groan escaped the lips of the soldier, who collapsed on her knees in a swirl of long burgundy hair.

She used the momentum to unbalance the one on her left side. This one was a man instead, but Natsuki did not lose precious time looking at his face.

She threw herself at the woman in command, but she couldn't complete what she had in mind.

The Headmistress of Garderobe froze in her tracks, feeling something cold pressed against the back of her head.

"I wouldn't do that" the chilly voice of the soldier holding the gun hit her, sending a shiver down her back because, even if it sounded more mature, she knew that voice.

"You better believe her, Natsuki Kruger."

Natsuki raised the head to gaze at the commander.

The latter turned slowly on her heels, removing a pair of black safety goggles probably made for night vision.

Natsuki couldn't help but hold her breath.

"Juliet Nao Zhang" she hissed. "What is happening?"

The woman in front of her was clearly not the same Nao she used to know. The mocking expression that was her trademark had been replaced by an icy stare, and she also looked older, somewhere between twenty and twenty five years old.

Natsuki snuck a swift glance at the two soldiers at her side. They were on their feet now, hands ready on their guns.

It took her only a moment to recognize the red-head.

'Midori, the leader of the Aswald. What are you doing here too, and dressed this way?'

The other was a black-haired, handsome man, who Natsuki didn't know, with the same hard stare of his companions in his green eyes. The nametag on his flank jacket said "Kanzaki".

She took a deep breath before turning to face the last soldier of the quartet.

The woman was still holding the gun at the level of Natsuki's eyes.

'Automatic machine gun' Natsuki corrected herself. And a dangerous looking one.

She didn't need the woman to remove the goggles to identify her. The sleek greenish hair spoke volumes. And a look at her nametag made Natsuki's skin crawl with controlled anger.

"Tomoe Margherite" she spat out, without even trying to hide the disgust.

The other didn't flinch at her tone. Only the lightest smile appeared on Tomoe's lips, but the machine gun remained firmly aimed at Natsuki's head.

"Now, if you have finished staring at us, we should really leave. This place is no longer secure."

The sharp tone made Natsuki return her attention to Nao.

"What do you mean?" the Headmistress said coldly.
"Where I am and…" she gazed intently at Nao's face. "… and who are you people?"

The other woman smiled sadly, for the first time.

"I'm Captain Nao Zhang, Western Republic. From the look on your face I believe you know someone who resembles us in your world. I am sorry to disappoint you, but we are not the same people, nor this is the reality you used to know. Welcome to Terra, a world in the midst of a genocidal war."

Natsuki felt her heart skip a beat at the magnitude of the revelation.

A quick look behind the shoulders of the "Captain", only confirmed her words.

They were on a cliff, high above a scorched plain that was pock-marked with the craters of old explosions. The blacked ruins of a city lay at the horizon, faintly outlined by a dull grey light. The sky was heavy with low clouds.

'And I'm sure they'll rain ashes,' Natsuki thought.
'I don't know why or how I ended up there, but I certainly don't like any of this.'

Right that second an explosion reverberated around them.

Instinctively she flexed her legs, ready to fight, but the man called Kanzaki gripped her arm.

"There is no time. Run!" He ordered.

The whole group sprinted to the edge of the cliff as bullets flew around them.

Despite her training, Natsuki was taken aback by what was going on, while those around her seemed quite the opposite. How they could ever hope to escape this ordeal was beyond her imagination.

'That's the problem with being raised a soldier in a peaceful world' her practical mind thought.

The serious look on their face made clear they acknowledged how critical the situation was, but apparently they were not ready to succumb the panic.

'This is not the result of training, but of a life time spent fighting. I wonder how long this war has been going on.'

Natsuki raised her head, and in front of her there was only a void.

Her muscles froze to stop her irrational run, but Kanzaki didn't let her go.

"Don't stop, fool. Close your eyes and jump," Nao shouted to her.

The Headmistress barely had time to do what the red-head commanded. She didn't have another choice anyway.

Eyes tightly shut she leaped, her fingers mentally crossed.

She gasped when her feet connected with a metallic surface that swung under their weight. Unprepared, she fell to her knees, but not a sound escaped her lips.

A moment later she opened her eyes, seeing the interior of some kind of vehicle. Strong arms circled her waist, while the humming of powerful engines reached their highest pitch.

The machine moved swiftly up and forward, and from the narrow windows she could see they were soaring over the plain.

"Our helicopter. It was inside a stasis field, thus it was perfectly invisible to human eyes," Tomoe said, handing her a pair of headphones.

Almost suspiciously Natsuki took them, before turning towards Nao.

"You owe me an explanation," she growled, trying to regain her composure.

'Helicopters, stasis fields. Their technology seems to have evolved in a similar yet slightly different way from ours.'

The other woman just waved a hand, busy dialing a number on a sleek black phone.

"Later. Once we make it to base, the chief will be more than happy to give you the details of what is going on."

"Since you dragged me out of my world, and threw me in this inferno, could I at least know, who this chief is?"

Captain Nao Zhang's reply made Natsuki's eyes grow wide in surprise.

General Shizuru Viola ended the call, slightly furrowing her elegant eyebrows.
Without a word she caressed the collar of her knee-length black coat, adorned with the insignia of her rank. She sat behind her desk, pyramiding her fingers under her chin.

"Worried? Isn't it too late now?" said a soft voice, in a subtle sarcastic tone.

Shizuru spared a gentle but cold smile for the man standing in front of her, dressed exactly like her.

"Hard times call for hard decisions. You know that as soon as rumors of the death of our President reach the masses, order will disintegrate and the war will be lost."

Her interlocutor smiled, gingerly running his hand through his bluish ruffled hair.

"May I remind you what the consequences will be, if word of what you have ordered today reach to the aforementioned masses? Your decision is something that goes against the very foundations of our world, General Shizuru Viola."

She returned his smile. Nothing in the woman's appearance suggested the anger boiling inside her.

"And may I remind you that the reason behind our President's death lies in the inability of the Intelligence Bureau to properly do its work? Perhaps I should put someone else in charge, Colonel Nagi De Artai."

He shook his head, even though a sardonic smile still lingered on his lips. "Checkmate. I guarantee you that the secrecy of this operation will be preserved, no matter the cost."

Her warm crimson eyes bored into his scarlet ones. "The future of the Western Republic, not just our lives, depends on this, do you understand me, Nagi?"

"Of course. We exist only to serve our Country, isn't that what they taught us the very first day we joined the Army?"

"Exactly" she said, mindlessly staring at the red trident embroidered on his right coat sleeve. The symbol of a country she had vowed to protect.

After he left, Shizuru sat for countless minutes in silence, her hands reducing a piece of paper into a thousand fragments.

'I can't trust Nagi, but I can't do otherwise. It's true that I went against the rules of this world to defend the Western Republic, but I'd make them crumble to have back what I loved the most.'