Disclaimer: You already know. I don't wanna say the fact that I don't own Gakuen Alice! Oops, just said it. LOL.
BTW, in the flashback, the ages are: Miko, 12, Miaka, 12, Mira, 11, Mikan, 10, and Mika, 9. But the real thing is: Miaka, 17, Mira, 16, and Mikan, 15. I'm not telling you if any of the other sisters appear. This chapter is mostly about how Mikan changed.
I know you don't get this, but you will.
Chapter One: What Made Me Change
Mikan's POV:
Could you really blame the fact that I hated myself? I blame myself for everything that happened that made me change, even if it wasn't my fault. I blame myself for everything that happened that made me become a dark, closed individual. To tell you the truth, I wasn't always like this. I used to be a happy, cheerful girl, and if you knew me then and compared the old me to the person I am now, you would have thought that I was from an alternate universe.
Flashback:
"Mika, where are you?" I shouted. My sister, Miaka looked at me. I was worried. Where was Mika? I looked at Miaka worriedly. "Don't worry, Mikan. We'll find Mika. I just wonder where she is…" she trailed off, seeing a girl with her back to us, watching the evening sky. We ran to the girl. "Hotaru," I said, startling the raven haired girl. She looked at us with those amethyst eyes. "Mikan, Miaka," Hotaru said, acknowledging our presence. "Mika is-"We heard footsteps, and the rustling of leaves. Our heads snapped to the direction of the sound. My other sister, Mira, appeared, out of breath. "Mikan, Miaka!" She exclaimed. "Any luck?" Miaka and I shook our heads. Mira sighed heavily. Then we heard the leaves rustle again, and my oldest sister, Miko, appeared with a hand on her hip and a smirk on her face. "Hmph," she said haughtily. "It's fine with me. She was such a brat and was never useful for anything, the pest." I felt the tension and anger. I never really liked Miko. Well…I used to. She used to be so nice, but that ended when she was 10, two years ago. I didn't know what happened, but I had a nagging feeling Miko had something to do with this. Or did she? "Well then, leave us alone. Unlike you, Miko, we actually want to look for our youngest sister. So if you don't want to be helpful, go rot somewhere," Mira said icily. Miko stuck her nose in the air snootily. "Whatever. Do what you want. I'm just telling you my opinion of this. This is so unnecessary." She dropped her hand from her hip, and let out another, "hmph." Just as she turned to walk away, Mira spoke again. "And what makes you think that we want to even know your opinion, Miko?" Miko turned around with a sad look that surprised us all. Ever since the day she had turned into a person that we didn't recognize, she started acting haughty all the time. But now, she actually looked sad. "If you knew the truth, I wouldn't have to have an explanation. If you knew the truth, you would know that it's not my fault. If you knew, my sisters standing before me wouldn't hate me right now. But you don't, and for that I'm sorry." She turned around again and left, leaving the three of us speechless. But Hotaru was being her usual quiet self, and was not at all speechless, because she spoke up again. "Mika is-" She was interrupted again by an ear-splitting scream. The four of us looked at each other. We knew that scream anywhere. It was Mika. "It's over by the woods," Miaka told us frantically. "Let's go." We ran to the woods, and luckily got there at the right time. There was a cloaked figure slowly coming towards Mika, emitting a dark aura. We didn't come to her right away, and hid behind the nearest trees instead. "Let me go. You'll never control me again. You almost made me kill my own sister again, if only I didn't have so much hope. You made me take my own sister's heart, you made her emotionless! I wasn't able to save her, and look at everything else you made me do. I have to live in darkness, all because you manipulated me. Think about what you've done! Think about everything you have to hold inside of you! Think about all the things that could have happened! Just because cruel things have happened to you, doesn't mean that you can take things out on other people just so you can see them suffer like you have done. It doesn't mean that. Live a new life! Live a life where you will be happy about the things you have done. You don't have to do all these horrible things!" The figure stopped for a while to answer her. "Yes, yes I do. It is my- I'm not revealing anything else!" The figure continued to advance towards Mika. Miaka came out from behind the tree she was hiding in. "Leave her alone!" The figure turned to her. It raised a hand, but before it could do the unpredictable, I came out. "Stop!" At the distraction, Mika ran up to the figure and touched its' shoulder. The figure collapsed and withered in pain. Then ice slowly froze the figure, but before it could be fully frozen, it disappeared. I was confused but didn't say anything. As soon as the figure disappeared, Mika sat back down in front of a tree and hugged her legs, crying and burying her face in her knees. We ran to her. "Are you okay? What happened?" Miaka asked. "Tell us, right from the start of it." Mika paused for a while then answered. "Do you really want to know what happened?" Mika questioned, looking up at us. We nodded. "Well…ok. You know that cloaked person?" We nodded again. "That is Mordred. It's really him. He's not some sorcerer like they say. He's an alice." Miaka, Mira and Hotaru's eyes widened but I still didn't get it. What's an alice? "So then…So then you're saying that…he's one of us," Mira said slowly. Mika nodded. "Yes. He's got the alice of manipulation and I've a feeling that maybe he has the alice of death, also. I was also…talking about a sister who died…Her name was Miki. We…went back in time…and, the younger Mordred…he…forced me to…kill her. He manipulated me, took control of me. But the real me was still there, fighting to regain my rightful place. But no…she would have been thirteen by now…I don't even know why he wanted me to kill her. And about the 'kill my sister again, take my sister's heart' part, well, to tell you the truth…it's about...it's about Miko. She doesn't have a heart anymore. She's emotionless, but that doesn't mean that the real Miko isn't there. It's like when I get controlled, I'm still there, but you follow on someone else's orders. Everything is unpredictable now. Everything." She paused for a second, and then I said, "What's an alice? I don't understand most of what you are saying." Miaka answered my question. "It's…how should I put it? It's sort of like a power, but that's the name for it, 'alice.' Not everyone has it. But we, you, Mika, Mira, Miko, Hotaru, our parents, Hotaru's parents, Hotaru's brother and I do. That's really all I can say to explain what it is, to tell you the truth. It's pretty complicated." I nodded and noticed that Hotaru looked a little sad. "Do you know what it means? What Miko said?" Mika had been nodding and staring at her knees, but at a mention of that, her head snapped up abruptly. "What?" She asked curiously. "What did she say?" I tried my best to remember exactly what Miko had said. "Well…she had a really troubled look on her face, and she said, 'If you knew the truth, I wouldn't have to have an explanation. If you knew the truth, you would know that it's not my fault. If you knew, my sisters standing before me wouldn't hate me right now. But you don't, and for that I'm sorry.' She said exactly that." Mika's eyes widened in disbelief, yet at the same time she looked happy. "That was the real Miko. She's having progress." We smiled when the thought sank in. If we could have her back, we would be really happy. "That would be a miracle." Mira nodded happily at the thought of having our sister back. "It would." Little did we know that Mordred hadn't disappeared, but was right there hiding. At that moment, seeing Mika looking happy, Mordred felt jealous, so he dashed out from behind the tree. He was about to do something to me, use his alice of manipulation or death, Mika's theory, I thought, so before he could use his alice on me, Mika ran to me, his target, to save me, and so she was the one to get hit. This time, he really did disappear, and Mika coughed out blood. Before any of us could do anything, she died, just like that, almost instantly. He really did have the alice of death, but on top of that, he killed yet another member of my family.
Five years. Five years since that horrible, fateful day had happened. No one between the four of us who knew how she died talked about it. Oh wait, five. Her darn killer also knew. It made me want to cringe in disgust. Why did he want to kill me anyway? Was it because I was close to Mika, was it because of no apparent reason, or was it something else? I never really thought about the reason, "why me," and this was no exception. I quickly brushed it off, as always. After Mika had died, we stayed there, shocked. None of us had wanted to leave, but if we didn't they would have gotten suspicious and worried. They would have looked everywhere for us, they would have found Mika's body. So we covered her body in leaves, made her look like she had a peaceful death except for the blood, and hesitantly, we left. Really, we wanted to give her a funeral, the right way of…concealing bodies. But we couldn't, not unless we wanted to explain how she died, why she died, who killed her or who was responsible for her death, where she died, or did she die on the spot she was on, when she died, what was her motive, so on and so forth. And no, we didn't want to explain something like that. Some of the questions we don't even know the answer to. But for sure, that would be the questions people would ask. Mainly, Miko, our parents, and Hotaru's. The events of the day, starting from when she had gone missing, replayed in my head. Over, and over, and over. When we told them that we couldn't find her, it was really an agonizing sight. We were debating whether to tell them we couldn't find her, or tell them that we did find her, but she was dead. We chose the first one, because that meant there was still a hope. It meant that she could still be I knew it wasn't my fault, but I blamed myself. It goes to show that I still have some of my old self left. It also goes to show that I am completely delusional. But whatever. I think that maybe I am going crazy. Not much of a surprise, seeing as there are things like alices wandering around the world.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
"Who is it?" I asked. It could be any one of my sisters. In our family, weirdly enough, the younger people are early risers while the older people wake up just an hour before the average person. "It's Mira." Well, I'm fine with that. "It's a free world." She came in and sat on the bed beside me, where I was laying down with my hands behind my head and my left leg bent, watching the ceiling and not paying any attention at all to it. It was 4:30, thirty more minutes until the people from Alice Academy came. Miaka and Miko are still here. We managed to escape the Academy, but now our parents have given up and we're going. Good, I'm tired of moving from place to place. Besides, I'm kinda excited, though, while still mentally mourning and blaming myself, I would never say that out loud. "I know what you're thinking about," Mira told me after I had zoned out for seven minutes, "but I'm not gonna stop you. I just wish that you wouldn't blame yourself so much. It's really not your fault, and you know that." I looked at her and sighed visibly. "I know, I know. I just can't help feeling guilty, even though there are sources who say it's not my fault, who apparently happens to be my best friend and two of my sisters." Mira laughed. "But then again, I already know, you guys have told me thousands of hundreds of times, so really…" She smiled. "Yeah, I know we have. But we can't help it. We don't have to worry about accidentally reminding you and making you upset, because frankly you think about that at least three times a day. But even if we don't have to worry, even though we know we don't have to worry, we really can't resist telling you repeatedly that this is most definitely NOT your fault. Seriously, Mikan, cut yourself some slack! You really shouldn't beat yourself up like that, and you know it." I shrugged, crossing my legs and arms now. "Yeah, I know. You know I know. Miaka and Hotaru know I know. God knows I know." I shrugged again. "Hey," I started off, "is Miko and Miaka awake yet?" I didn't say that because I wanted to change the subject. I said that because I wanted to know. If they slept in, I would be sort of shocked but I wouldn't really show it. I don't show my emotions most of the time but I reveal more to my family. I show the most emotions around Hotaru, Miaka and Mira though. Miko would be on that list, but you know what happened. Until she's back, I can't really do anything about it. "Yup. A long time ago. Around the time I woke up. Isn't that obvious, though? That's a really weird question to ask me, Mikan. You ok?" "Oh. Yeah, I agree it's obvious, and I know it's a weird question to ask you. Also, I'm completely fine." Mira raised an eyebrow. "Um…okay…weird…"