HaruMichi BatB Chapter 17! Please note that Chapter 16 was posted Saturday as a bonus update, and check the Masterpost if you’ve missed anything!

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Michiru came to slowly as the pain in her head receded like a wave pulled back over the sand into the sea. And as she opened her eyes and saw the room empty save for Makoto and Usagi, who held her, a new one crashed in. The pain washed over every crevice of her heart.

Her breath caught.

Usagi stopped crying. “Michiru, you’re okay! I was scared this time-”

“You have to get out of here,” Mako cut in. “They’ve lit the house on fire.” She met Usagi’s eyes grimly. They could not go beyond the walls. They would have to trust that they were immaterial enough not to burn.

“I’m sorry,” Michiru said, extracting herself from Usagi’s arms. “I have been given every chance for absolution, and instead I have dug my own grave. And yours.” Then again, had they not always been fated to end up here? Love would not break the curse. And yet… Michiru felt she had ruined her only salvation. Haruka might have really come to love her. Except Michiru had shown that she would never be worthy of anything but the fires she could now hear building ever bigger, ever closer.

“If you go now, Usagi should be able to heal any injuries you sustain.”

“I will not be going anywhere.” Michiru would not cry, not now. She did not deserve even her own sympathy. “What is there in the world for a monster like me? I shall perish with this house.” She turned and made her best approximation of a curtsy. “You have served me well, and I thank you. I hope you can find a way to make it out when I am gone.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

Neither Makoto nor Usagi answered her. They knew, surely, that there was no reason at all. She had proven, once and for all, that there was nothing good in her. There was nowhere to go from here.

“I’d like a moment, please.” She made her way to the balcony. “Just one moment alone, before…”

Makoto nodded. “We will stay close.” She took Usagi by the shoulder and they disappeared together.

Michiru stared at the dark, starless sky as the smoke began to waft out around her. She had been such a fool. A fool to scorn so many, a fool to believe she could ever make up for it, a fool to believe it could ever not matter.

“Is this what you felt?” she asked into the night, wondering if somehow the witch who’d cursed her would hear it through the years. “Had you believed?” Michiru had not set fire to her home– though that wasn’t fair to say, she was sure now. That girl had had an idea of a home with Michiru, and Michiru had torched it thoroughly. Carelessly. Cruelly. Perhaps Michiru’s only claim to greater pain was that Haruka was not cruel. It could not have been a shock when Michiru acted as such, but Haruka… with Haruka, it was a reflection upon Michiru.

She could not stop a tear, then, and she could not stop the next.

She turned away from the open air and towards the smoke. She took her wretched hand mirror up one last time. “Show me what could have been,” she whispered, voice thick. “Show what could have been if I were worthy.”

It’s surface shone bright for a moment, and then it showed only Michiru’s face as it had been before the change.

“No,” she said, shaking it. “That’s not what I want now, show me Haruka, show me—“

She froze. A hand, not a claw, held the mirror’s handle. Her hand. Her smooth, human hand. The glass showed her shocked face, full cheeks and pink lips, hair still wound atop her head, but soft now, even beginning to fizz in the night air around the edges of the braid. Her dress, torn at the shoulders, hung loosely around a human body, with human curves and human lines. She wiggled her bare toes–toes!– and felt the stone beneath them.

A sound bubbled up from her throat, and she could not identify it as a laugh or a sob. Of course this would come now, when there was nothing left to make it matter. It was truly hilarious, and tragic, and shocking and inevitable and she wanted to break the mirror, shatter it now that it was as powerless as she was, but it would do nothing, and–

A shout came from the hall. Michiru swallowed her feelings and hurried back into the room, only to have the wind knocked from her by the embrace of a now very solid Usagi. The shorter woman sobbed against her. Makoto trailed behind, teary as well, fingertips skating over her palms and marveling at the feel of her own skin.

“You have to get out of here,” Michiru said. She felt hollow. A puppet, going through a script. “Others have climbed up to the balcony, surely you can climb down.”

“You can’t expect us to leave you,” Usagi looked up with big, bloodshot eyes.

Michiru pressed her lips together. “Of course not,” she lied. “I will be right behind you.” She patter Usagi’s head. “You’ll be able to see your daughter again. Or granddaughter.”

“And you promise you’ll come, too?”

“I promise.”

To the already damned, a broken promise meant nothing.

“You should go first, Makoto,” she continued. “To help Usagi.”

Makoto looked at her, eyes knowing, conflicted. She stepped up, and Michiru feared she would argue, but then she pulled Michiru into a hug. “She won’t make it on her own. I have to protect her,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I could not protect you.” She pulled back and kissed Michiru’s forehead, like she were an angel giving a blessing. “Come on, Usagi, I’ll find the safest way down.”

Usagi looked between them, perhaps suspecting, but then she followed Makoto to the balcony and began to climb.

Michiru sank to the floor. Her legs felt so small and weak, now. Little twigs, compared to what had replaced them for so long. She ran her hands along them and wondered how she’d even manage, had she followed Makoto and Usagi. This body was small and slow and vulnerable. She felt physical fear for the first time in decades as the roar of the fire drew closer.

It seemed to call her name now. The flames were her portal to hell, and they beckoned her, ready to claim their bounty. Michiru! Michiru!

“Michiru!”

It was not the fire. Someone was calling her name.

“Mi-chi-ruuu!” Coughing followed.

No, this could not happen. She had just sent Usagi away, if Haruka got hurt… And why would Haruka be here, why…

“Michiru!”

Hope and fear battled for her heart. She stood on her pathetic, shaky twigs, and ran.

“Mich—“

Michiru followed the sound of coughing. Her breaths got shorter, the weakness of her body and the pervasiveness of the smoke straining her lungs. “Haruka!” She shouted while she still could.

“Michiru!”

She slowed to a walk, refusing to stop as her muscles began to radiate pain. She followed the sounds down the stairs, back towards the ballroom. The smoke grew thicker,  the heat more intense. “Haruka!”

“I thought you were dead!” Haruka sounded close now, invisible still among the ash. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t stop them, but I won’t let you die.”

Part of the ceiling crashed down to Michiru’s left. “Haruka!” Her heart beat like a wild thing in its cage. You should have left! Better to have me die alone than see you hurt.

“Are you okay?” Haruka coughed.

“Where are you?” Michiru kept moving forward, and finally she could see Haruka’s shadow through the smoke. “I’m here,” she said, but shut her mouth quickly as ash and smoke blistered her tongue.

Their hands met first. Haruka flinched at the touch. The fire surged closer. They were illuminated for the first time. Haruka gasped, then sputtered, coughing violently.  She began to wobble on her feet as she tried to say something, but could not get a breath around the harsh clouds around them.

“No, no it’s okay–” But she crumbled, slumping limp to the floor. Michiru’s mind raced, Haruka needed to breath. She needed to breathe but the air was wretched and– and Michiru knew what to do. She tore fabric from the shoulder of her dress, one rough square and then another, grateful that it was already mostly ripped. She pressed one against Haruka’s face and one against her own. It made breathing easier, but the smoke still came through. They had to get out. Haruka did not move, even as her breathing became more regular. Michiru could not climb down the balcony with her. Michiru was not sure she could move her at all.

The fire was close now. She didn’t have a choice. Michiru grabbed Haruka under the shoulders, looping one hand up to hold the cloth over Haruka’s mouth. and lifted her as best she could, letting her feet drag. Just an hour ago, it would have been nothing to her. Who would have believed that she’d miss that form so much?

This form ached, made her aware of every muscle she had as it screamed. It did not matter. Beautiful, stupid Haruka was not going to die here. She dragged her through the dark, ashy halls, through rooms where flames licked at Haruka’s shoes and threatened to consume the whole of them. For all the times she’d been shot, stabbed, hunted, persecuted, she had never felt so much pain.

And never had she felt as much relief as when she finally saw a window, a beautiful, breakable, window, large enough for a body to go through. They were going to make it. She could not think of all the other things that waited outside the window– of all the things that would happen to Michiru, of what, exactly, was in the world for a monster like her– only of Haruka’s salvation. Nothing else in the world could matter.

She was going to save Haruka as surely as Haruka had saved her.

She was going to do one good thing. Even a monster could do one good thing.

Michiru smashed through the window, and let come what may.