Disclaimer: I don't own Mai HiME.

A/N: I expect people to compare this to Xmen because you can't write a fic about mutant powers and not have it compared to the Xmen. The comics have been around forever and are brilliant. I did try and use some of the more obscure powers though so they don't become boring or repitive. Hope I did a good job.

XxXx

Shizuru moved through the party with the grace and easiness that was bred through centuries of human cultivation. Her blood held not one drop of common anything. She was the perfect lady. Everyone at the party could trace their names back at least two hundred years, She could trace hers back seven. According to her father the first caveman was a Fujino and no one ever argued with her father.

She smiled at a fat balding man that leered at her while saluting with his wine glass. She hated everyone in this room because all of them would not hesitate to stab her in the back and kill her if they ever found out what she was. She joined her mother and the small group of admirers that gathered to fawn around her.

"-disgraceful what the world is coming to!" Mrs Ito was in mid exclamation as she joined. The other women all nodding furiously. Her mother hung back watching the conversation and assessing if her input was needed. Her mother rarely ever dined to speak with anyone of the lower families which meant that there was only eighteen people in the world that she would converse with freely, eight of which where her close family.

"I know but after this mutant registration comes in we can finally put those freaks in their place!" Mrs Sato chimed in to the draw attention to herself. The forty year old widow had more plastic in her body than blood. The last time anyone could remember her making a facial expression was Christmas two years ago and it was one of extreme duress as the valet at the club scratched her brand new Ferrari.

"What's this about mutant registration?" She asked calmly though her insides boiled with rage and fear.

"There going to make people take tests for job interviews and such and if your found to be a mutant the government takes you details," Mrs Ito face said she couldn't have been happier, then again Mrs Ito was know to agree with a lot of Hitler's policies as well.

"I heard they might even bring it into schools!" Mrs Ito was the rooms most vicious gossip which was quite an achievement as she was up against some very stiff competition. "I was talking to Jerry last night, you all know Jerry, he's the assistant to Mr. Kuga the counciler," Mrs Ito was also a vicious name dropper "anyway he's the one that let it slip that it was going to be brought into schools," she leaned closer to her 'friends' as if speaking confidentially but really in a few hours she would have told this story to everyone in the room and beyond "the government is actually going to implement it this year! Oh yes! Its going to start at the small private schools then onto the public Jerry reckons that in two years they will have registered every freak living in Japan."

All the woman made appropriate 'oohs' and 'ahhhs' but only her reaction was honest. She paled and the glass of champaign in her hand lurched forward dangerously. They were going to find her and kill her. The government wouldn't stop at registering mutants they would want to experiment on them. She was going to become someone's lab rat.

"Oh, Sakura! Look at what you've done to this poor girl with all your talk of mutants and such!" Mrs Sato placed her hand on her elbow and tried to look concerned but not only was this a foreign emotion that she was now only attempting to grasp or at least pretend to in order to garner approval in her mothers eyes but the silicon in her face prevented anything more than an unflattering eye twitch. "We shall talk no more of this, why don't you try and get some air hhmm?"

"But not in the west garden dear. That awful Kuga girl is out there, you know I once heard from Ichigo Muul, the up and coming painter? He's suppose to be the next best thing since Di Vinci himself, that the Kuga girl was mentally ill and that's why her father sent her to live with her grandmother in seclusion!" Mrs Ito was off again glad to impart a new bit of gossip.

She was going to hit the woman in front of her. Damn the consequences of social exclusion. But just as she stepped forward to deliver her scathing reprimand she was halted by her mother who did it for her. "I have personally spent time with Natsuki Kuga and found her a delightfully spirited girl. She was a friend of my daughters and I consider her and her family to be good friends of mine." her mother quite voice cut through the continuing gossip in which Mrs Sato had joined in as well. Both woman looked on in fear and apprehension. It would only take one call by the statuesque woman to ruin them and they knew it. "You bore me now. Leave" the two women scurried away their feathers ruffled.

"Thank you," she said to her mother. Her mother had always puzzled her. She must have had western descendants because the blonde hair and pale skin did not come naturally to the Japanese. But her mother denied it and you argued with her as much as you would with her father. Her mother despite being female had absolutely no idea how to handle or deal with kids. The woman always grew nervous when left in a room with her for extended periods of time when she was younger. Even now they never exchange more than thirty words in a year. Her mother nodded and gestured for her to walk away. She was after all the Queen of high society and it wouldn't do for her to walk away from the area she had chosen as her own.

She bowed briefly and hurried to the west gardens. The garden might have been bigger than the actual house which was massive. Everywhere there where flowers and hedges cut into the shape of majestic animals. Every spare corner of space was filled with tacky garden statues all original and created by those 'up and coming artists' and 'the next best thing'. When said artist falls out of popularity all the statues are smashed to make way for the pieces of the new talent. The world in which she live was so fickle. She sometimes what's to take a hammer to them herself. Swing hard and fast and break the statues, the cloths, the fancy jewellery and all the facades she had to wear in order to make it thought the day and not get lynched. She was so sick of this fake shining world that's light would gouge out her eyes if she were to try and leave it.

"Natsuki!" She called as she spotted the girl in the middle of the Japanese bridge staring at the water no doubt filled with gold fish or carp or what ever fish happened to represent wealth and power this year.

"Stay away!" the dark haired girl held up her hand her face turned away from her. Natsuki had grown since they last saw each other which was to be expected as they hadn't seen each other in over seven years. She was disturbed to discover that the first thing she noticed about her old friend was her curves. It didn't help that the girl wore a biker suit that clung to them. She was a mutant and a lesbian she must really hate herself to have chosen these traits in her last life. The two biggest things that guaranteed disownment and she had both in spades.

"Natsuki its me Shizuru," she tried to talk calmingly but her excitement at seeing her only true friend might have leaked out. Natsuki turned her head to look at her and she was hit with the fact that it wasn't only the appearance of curves that had changed in her friend. Her skin was unhealthily pale and her eyes which she remembered to be this vibrant green seemed washed out and pale. She looked tortured.

"Oh, yeah I think I remember you," her voice was absent as her face scrunched up with pain.

She moved to try and comfort the other girl her tormented expression awakening her dormant caretaker.

"No! Don't come near me!" she scrambled back away from her panicked. Her face was so terrified that Shizuru stopped with her foot on the bridge. "Natsuki I'm not going to hurt you." God what had happened to her normally strong friend. When they where children it was always Natsuki that had to hold her hand as they entered dark rooms both on them two small to reach the light switches.

"Just leave me alone," the pain was gone but her face still looked haggard. Her shoulders slumped wearily and she returned to gazing at the water. Sensing that it would be okay for her to approach she inched closer to the girl weary of another episode.

"I've missed you," she tried, because she had. She had missed the other girl beyond reason because its was only with Natsuki could she be herself. She never had to pretend she was a lady with her. She was encouraged to jump in mud puddles and spit and a thousand other things every ordinary child did naturally that she would never have dreamed of doing without the tomboy.

"I can't really remember you," she said listlessly.

That hurt. She had treasured their short time together as children like most would treasure a prized jewel and for her to find out Natsuki didn't feel the same about their time together hurt. A lot. Though she didn't allow it to show on her face the emotion assaulted her in waves.

Natsuki clutched her head and fell onto her side screaming. "AAAHHHH I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I remember too okay?!"

What the-? Was this girl crazy?

"No I'm not crazy! just stop crying!" Natsuki was sobbing herself.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to say you..." She trailed of and her emotions changed to puzzlement. Natsuki's features released her tense expression and gradually went slack. "...I didn't say that at all…I thought it."

Natsuki looked horrified and scrambled up and away from her. Shizuru's actions where those of a desperate woman as she had been excused form gym class for years due to the fact she hated any strenuous activity so to actually move faster than her normal snails pace and launch herself with newfound strength straight at Natsuki's legs and to pin the other girl beneath her shocked her as well as the captured girl.

"You're one of them aren't you?!" her voice was harsh in its excitement. She couldn't believe it she wasn't alone anymore!

"No! Get off me!" Natsuki struggled from side to side unable to throw the frail looking girl of her. As Natsuki's hands flailed about Shizuru did the thing most in her situation would. She grabbed the other girls hands and pinned them to the wooden bridge. It was in that moment that their bare skins touched that she got drunk.

She was seven years old and attending Miniko's birthday party. She had to play house with the other girls while the boys went of to play war. She hated playing house but didn't like playing war either so she was stuck here with the rest of these future trophy wife's. The was a big yell before a bike came careening out of no where at break neck speed straight for Miniko and her wendy house which was what prompted playing this horrible game. There was a ripping sound and squeals of the girls inside as the house collapsed. The canvas of the house fluttered in the wind before settling over the children who where trying to escape turning them into a mass of moving lumps. Worried parents and servants rushed to help there respecting children but the first child to surface was the biker. With short shoulder length hair reminiscent of her own, short was in season, Natsuki Kuga set up from the ruined house and proclaimed hotly; "Now who the hell put a house in the middle of my race track!?"

"See if you're not covered in mud the enemy would be able to see you" explained Natsuki splashing herself with the brown substance. "But its dirty" She whined unwilling to cover her new jeans in filth. "So? You have a washing machine right?" Natsuki rolled her eyes and she was unwilling to tell the girl that she didn't know if they had a washing machine as she had never been in the kitchens. She tentatively scooped the mud up in her hand and grimacing smeared it on her red top. "That's its, here I'll help!" Natsuki helpfully shoved her in the puddle before diving in herself. She was just about to shout at the other girl and cry for her daddy when Natsuki's hand covered hers "look its Mr. Evil Bear over there in his fortress of doom!" she forgot all about why she was mad and they went to save the world from Mr. Evil Bear.

She was ten years old Natsuki had been gone for a year and a half and she had to make new friends with the other girls at her school. "Don't you think Jerride is handsome?" Selphie squealed to Sophie who nodded "oh yeah! I'm going to marry him when I grow up!" they where both fawning over a magazine where Jerride and his new girlfriend Clair stood smiling at the cameras on the red carpet. "What do you think 'Zuru?" the other girls simpered sucking up to the richest among them even at a young age. She took the magazine and studied Jerride. He was blonde and quite handsome but she thought that she would much rather marry the dark haired woman beside him.

She was fourteen and had left her gym bag in the changing room. She hurried to get it before she was even later to her next class. The teacher wouldn't say anything no one would dare reprimand a Fujino but she needed to learn maths for her future in business. The room was filled with older girls uniforms hanging on pegs. They must have the gym after them. She spotted her bag where she left it and grabbed it turning to leave when she heard the shower running. Curious as she thought all the girls would be in glass she went to have a look. an older girl was showering, head thrown back under the spray and waist length dark hair glued to her back. She could just make out the profile of a breast when the other girl started to turn-

She struggled to release her hand from Natsuki's death like grip. The other girl was flushed and her lips parted breathing heavily. She stared vacantly above her. Her body gave a shudder and jerked upwards. Shizuru tore her hand away unwilling to share the rest of the memory with the other girl. She tugged so hard that she tumbled of her and sprawled backwards arms and legs going in separate directions.

Natsuki sat up dazed and shook her head slightly to try and bring this world into focus. That had never happened before. Shizuru sat up as well and both were looking at the other in a new and slightly embarrassed way.

"Sorry, I can't control it," Natsuki muttered breaking their staring match.

"Its, ah" she cleared her throat in embarrassment "okay."

"You won't tell anyone right?" Natsuki looked at her pleadingly.

Shizuru shook her head "Only if you don't tell them about me."

"Deal. Though I think being a lesbian isn't as bad as being a freak." she said self recriminating.

"What if you're both?" she said quietly looking at the ground instead of Natsuki.

Natsuki looked startled "What do you mean?"

"This," she stretched out her hand and Natsuki hesitated and seemed like she would refuse. After a moment or two she took it.

She was so angry! How dare her mother set her up on a date with that pig Miki. He was the biggest man whore at school. He thought just because he was rich and had a cool car that all the girls should sleep with him. Unfortunately his family was one of the very few that was on the same level of hers so she couldn't refuse to go without shaming them. She was just so angry. She didn't want to go let someone else go! She snatched up the phone and threw it at the wall. The receiver bounced off the wall and hit her back. She was knocked onto the bed and fell down beside it with black spots swimming before her eyes. "That hurt!" She raged but it wasn't her. She got up on her knees to look at the bed only to find there was another Shizuru glaring back at her.

They quickly let go of each other afraid to prolong the contact. Natsuki stared at her in shock while she waited calmly for some reaction.

"You're, you're just like me?" Natsuki's voice sounded small as if she couldn't quite believe it. "I'm not along anymore?"

Shizuru suspected she had the same dazed expression on her own face as she nodded.

"Wow," They sat in silence neither quite sure what to do now. "So what have you been up to these last few years?" it seemed lame to Natsuki as she said it but Shizuru was glad to talk about something and started to retell her life since Natsuki left it.