Ashy-noteInspired by a lot of tears that came flowing out of my eyes after watching Chris Medina's What Are Words. Cried, too. And did I tell you I bawled my eyes out? No? Well, I did. And I wept so hard, too. And after that I kept sobbing.

Set at maybe fourteen or fifteen, just before Hajime graduates.

-:|:-

At Its Peak

If there was anything Hajime could say was completely inhumane other than the countless murders he's committed, it would have to be this deathly scene he walked into. Out of all the missions he had to perform for Persona, this was a relatively easy one, because this was just a guard duty inside the Academy, and at the infirmary at that.

But compared to everything else, this was most unbearable one ever.

There was an IV stuck to the back of her hand, dripping medicine into her system with a rate of four drops to a second. Her throat had a huge hole where her breathing apparatus were stuffed into. Her chest was almost exposed, pinned with different coloured receptors that were attached to more or less three machines that constantly beeped and flashed and signalled her barely-living life. Her eyes were open, but they were dull, inert. Her voice had already abandoned her, and so did her locomotive skills. Her Nullification fluctuated so badly that healers couldn't get anywhere near her, and not even her friends' Alices could steady her even though they were so familiar. Her Stealing robbed people of their powers, and when they tried to control her Alices and attached limiting devices, it only killed her faster. Tranquilizers wouldn't work. The painkillers that were supposed to kill her pain were killing her instead. Her system blocked out all attempts at revival. She was nothing more than a vegetable, a lump of a body, a shadow of the light that she used to be.

Just staring at her makes him sick to the very core.

He just wanted to kill her, plug out all those cords stuck to her frail little body, cut off the power supply from her ventilators, stop all medication…

Death would have been better. She didn't deserve such suffering, even he knew it himself.

He never had much in him for Mikan Sakura. He didn't know her as well as the others do. He had never given her more than a curt nod in acknowledgement for every priceless smile she gave him. He was enchanted by her presence, as all the Dangerous Abilities have been, and yet he's never been closer than that, but he'd be damned to say he didn't feed off her presence like a leech to its host, because he'd be a hypocrite.

Other than that, however, she never meant anything more to him.

And yet that would be lying—because she means a whole damn lot to him. She gave him back his reason; she made him see things to which he'd been blinded before. God, whoever that person is, knows she must be a piece of work when even Persona gave in to the light that she showered them all with. She was sunshine, that girl.

But he simply could not — would not — believe she was that thing stuck paralyzed to the pristine white hospitable bed. She couldn't possibly be her, there were no traces of her former glory and joy and brilliance… But there was one thing that assured him of who that thing was.

Natsume.

In fact, Natsume was the only one really making the mission hard for him.

Of course, he didn't want to show anyone just how hard this was for him. He was, after all, such an "emotionless prat," as Rui liked to call him.

"Natsume, you need to rest," he spoke in an apathetic tone, trying to coax the fire caster into leaving the half-dead. His job would be so much easier if the black cat wasn't around. Or if he didn't know what the boy felt for the girl.

He stood far away from him, as close to the windows as possible, as hidden in the shadows as much as the light would allow, and watched as Natsume shook his head tiredly, stubbornly. His eyes were bloodshot, giving him an eerie look that bordered on positively morbid. From what little Hajime's heard, he hadn't slept since morning, when Sakura awoke writhing with pain and convulsions.

He didn't understand much about love, parched as he was when it came to affection, but still he recognized it anyway. It was only now that he got to see the Black Cat alone with her, and it was only now that he understood how different Natsume Hyuuga was from the Kuro Neko. He saw what could have led such an innocent and untainted spirit like Mikan Sakura to fight for and fall in love with the kid he had come to know as Death's right hand.

The Cat, the lethal weapon, was a killer. A ruthless assassin. A murderer. He killed in cold blood, he defied all mercy, severed all ties so easily. He was a formidable enemy, an invertebrate, so austere and majestic in all his glory. To the Black Cat, killing was swift, silent, and easy. He could kill hundreds without even employing his Alice, thousands more if he did. He was a machine, heartless, cruel, cold… sometimes a little reckless, but far from making him clumsy it only made him more formidable.

But the boy he was seeing wasn't the cat. It was Natsume. The one who hesitated whenever his target begged for mercy. The one who tried not to kill as much as possible. The leader whose sense of compassion clashed furiously with his duty to the Academy, whose refusals to kill often led him to punishments that lasted for hours on end, which he all endured without regret. It was the human Natsume, it was the real him. He was the boy, not the killer. Just the boy.

A sudden snapping sound brought Hajime back to his senses and his wariness rose alarmingly when he saw Natsume looking at Mikan with eyes that were alight with fear and worry. Then everything happened in a blur of events.

Mikan Sakura's involuntary jerk, the first sign that she was going to have a convulsion, was so severe and quick that she arched forward and her spine snapped. She fell limp to the bed, groaning, and then the monitors came alive, beeping violently. Seconds later it was a flat line. Even seconds later he sprang to his feet and ran to the hallways to call for doctors, barely registering what he saw in the sheer moments that passed.

He ran back into the room and saw Natsume furiously pressing the code blue button. The wards came in after him, dragging the crash cart. She wasn't moving, she wasn't breathing, and worse — so much worse — than the incessant sounding of the flat-line beep was that her Alices had deteriorated. It was a good thing as it allowed the Healers to treat her, but to Hajime and Natsume, having both been trained under the Dangerous Abilities, it was cataclysmic.

Losing one's Alice control was the first step towards death. Losing one's Alice itself was step number two.

Hajime did the Math in his head and if he was right, she had less than an hour. But with the broken spine, she had mere minutes.

He was shocked, too shocked, with his own computations. Natsume must have run through them as well, and when he turned his head to glance at the black cat, the shock was also evident. What he saw made his mission even more difficult. Truth be told, he never really thought the day would come, but it did — and he hated that it ever did.

Because for once in his life Hajime Yakumo saw the Black Cat so lost and confused about what to do, looking deranged by the unfocused movement of his eyes that held within it two flagrant emotions that Hajime was sure was taking over his leader: pure grief and fear.

The medical team ushered them out of the room, the flat-line tone still in the air. Hajime would have fought to remain inside, but Natsume didn't fight them off; he only tried to keep watch as they were pushed out of the emergency area.

Their usher gave them a look that clearly said we'll try our best then flung his arms out. They were doused in sudden quiet.

The man had placed a barrier around them.

He leaned on the wall opposite Natsume and breathed with closed eyes. The mission wasn't going the way he'd imagined it to go. He'd rather spill blood than to watch Natsume losing it. In front of him, Natsume sank on the floor, shaking. There were no tears, no sobs. Just violent tremors. Reactions that were contained until after all the adrenaline died down.

All of the people in his mixed class went through this sort of trauma after particularly vicious missions, and he's seen them all. But this night seemed to be a night of firsts, because as far as he was concerned, Natsume Hyuuga never went through this kind of experience. And yet then and there was a boy trembling all over, sitting on the floor, relying only on the strength of the walls to keep him from falling face down.

To Hajime Yakumo, Mikan Sakura was a masterpiece. He wasn't really surprised that Akira liked her, he saw it too himself. Just because he didn't like showing emotions didn't mean he had none (although admittedly he didn't have such a diverse collection) and he knew she was indeed something. She was beautiful and kind-hearted, and although he knew she was a little dumb and that sometimes her naïveté did her more bad than good, her diligence almost always made up for her seeming lack of logical capabilities. Those, and she had three rare and powerful Alices.

But like all good fortunes, hers had a terrible consequence.

He sighed darkly and leaned his head back against the wall, black hair swaying along to the motion. He took a deep, deep breath and unwillingly recalled the story from four days ago.

It was relayed to him by Nobara as she ran into their headquarters to inform everyone of the mission roadblock encountered by Natsume's team. Someone shot a blood-soluble, pain-inflicting, paralyzing bullet into one of the DA's youngest members, a young boy named Setsu, a level-9 Healing Alice whose Dangerous Ability was inflicting pain on his subjects from miles away using only his mind. That time the only solution for the boy to live was for someone to remove his Pain Alice so that the Healing Alice could function well; his Alice system had gone haywire as a result from the bullet, so his pain, already great enough, was magnified tenfold by his unrestrained Alices.

On the boy's way to the infirmary Sakura had bumped into them and saw the young boy in a fit of paroxysms caused by the bullet's and his Alice's side effects. He was also a Fourth Form, which meant that along with the pain from his wound, the chemicals in the bullet, and the Pain Alice, he was also shortening his life span by the second. Mikan being Mikan immediately took action, and Natsume tried to stop her but she argued. She stole the Alice from the boy with remarkable ease and the boy was cured and on his feet in seconds, but what happened next was something no one was able to anticipate.

She smiled in relief at her achievement and when the boy came to thank her, unstable as he was, he accidentally reabsorbed the Pain Alice, and everyone thought he was about to relapse but when he didn't, everyone sighed in relief. When he touched Mikan, however, her eyes rolled up and she fell limp. Not even the Black Cat was fast enough.

Not even the Black Cat was fast enough…

It was too much for his love-deprived mind, and Hajime didn't get it. He just didn't get it, and in his ignorance his anger suddenly flared for no logical reason at all.

Confusion stormed over him and broke through the train of his thoughts.

"Let her go, goddammit," he said through gritted teeth; so much for indifference. "Let her die. Stop fighting for her."

The fire caster lifted his eyes to meet his and stared. Just stared.

He took this as permission to keep talking. "Just look at her. She's dying anyway. You're making this too hard on her. She snapped her spine. Her body is refusing all treatment. The doctors won't be able to do anything. Her Alice has left her, all consciousness has left her, and we're only waiting for her soul to do the same."

Natsume gave out a small, tired laugh.

"What's so funny?"

The scarlet gaze fell on him again. He blinked at the intensity and sincerity, reflected in them, and when Natsume spoke, it was with an air of knowing insanity. "It's funny because I know what you're saying is true, but I can't help but believe her when she told me she's going to live through this."

It was there again, the incomprehensible torrent of emotions, and Hajime's frustration deepened. Disbelief carved its way to his question. "You're going to believe her even after seeing all that happened a while ago?"

"Strangely, yes."

"You're crazy, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

A short span of silence elapsed between them, in which Hajime marvelled at how composed Natsume seemed to be already. Even after seeing all sorts of vulnerabilities about him tonight, his respect only heightened. This boy was so much younger than him, and yet here he was, coping with things with such unnerving precision. He was just too good.

"I wonder if they've succeeded yet," said Natsume. With this statement Hajime was rather surprised, and despite his sworn indifference, it showed.

"You're too hopeful for your own good, Natsume," he growled at the boy. "We both know the chances of her living through it."

"Hn."

He flicked an eye at the figure on the floor. He wanted to understand—he had to understand.

"Why do you do this? What is all this for?"

The boy had his eyes closed but Hajime knew he was listening. Still, the answer came a little later than he thought.

"Because I have to."

The reply only infuriated Hajime more. "Why do you have to?"

At this the Fire had no reply and only silence remained afterwards. Everything was quiet, but inside Hajime was burning with so many more questions. Why does he stay? Why doesn't he just leave? Why does he have to sacrifice so much? Where were all these things headed for? Was this love? Was this what love entailed?

The seconds turned to minutes, turned to hours… still nothing.

At half-past two he had the sense to ask Natsume. "Why don't you leave her?"

The boy's tired head rose to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Why don't you leave her?" he said again. "There are so many others willing to stay with you. Leave her. Save yourself from all this misery. Let her go, let her die."

Natsume only stared, and Hajime didn't know if he was imagining but there seemed to be something accusatory in the boy's gaze.

"Because she's Mikan," Natsume said after a while, looking at an invisible spot on the floor. "She is who she is and I can't settle for anyone other than her. And if you're asking me to leave her now, I can't do that."

"Why?" The question burned in his head and he waited impatiently for the answer.

Natsume cleared it all out for him. "Because what kind of man would I be if I leave her when she needs me most? Everything I ever said would only be lies, and she doesn't deserve that. She deserves the truth, the good, the innocent. She deserves more than me giving up. She never gave up on me and I'm never giving up on her either. I'm not leaving her. Not even after she's dead."

Hajime stared. Natsume looked up at him. "I'm not expecting you to understand, I have difficulty wrapping my head around it too. But…" For a moment he shut his eyes and breathed deep. "I don't know. I don't know what would happen if I give up on her. This—this is the only way I know. This is the only thing left for me to do, because if she dies there won't be any point in doing anything."

He couldn't believe the words the Fire had just uttered and he fought to say something, but he was saved when one of the attending doctors of the medical team came out the room with a tired smile on his face. He declared that Mikan Sakura was going to live.

Hajime took it as the cue for his mission's accomplishment and so he only watched as Natsume sighed in relief, then walked away with only a curt nod as a goodbye to the Black Cat, thinking to himself how everything was so surreal.

Natsume's last words echoed in his head like microphone feedback…

Because what kind of man would I be if I leave her when she needs me most?

The kid knew more about life than he did, and more than he ever will.

And right then and there, Hajime Yakumo concluded that yes, this was, indeed, love at its peak.

I know, the ending was a little off, but I didn't know how to end it anyway. This is one of my weaker stories, I think. But I was just trying to play around using a most-of-the-time unused character and I don't know much about Hajime (I mean, who does in the first place?) and besides I know that this isn't as impressive as other fics, so spare me the flames and just say you like it in your reviews, okie? :D

~Ash.

REVISED: May 17, 2012.