Summary: SakuraMikan followed the impulses to see her best friend Imai Hotaru eventually. However she was a few months late and accidentally arrived during a Kureneko kidnapping by a world idol in the Alice Academy. Helping a perfect stranger (and a rude one too!) by chance, Mikan unexpectedly started her journey in Alice Academy in a different circumstances as the last and only memory she had was one with a certain bad tempered red eyed boy.
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Prologue
The pleasant light from the room's window and the sound of chirping birds calmed her in the unfamiliar place. A brown haired girl in a hospital gown looked around the sparsely yet tastefully decorated hospital room in absent wonder. She scratched her head in an attempt to recall back the reason she was suddenly thrust into a hospital and couldn't come up with anything.
Her memory was blank.
She tried to recall her name, her age, her parents, her friends or even her favorite color but she came up with nothing.
A bubbling sense of panic coursed through her vein, she felt the hysterical sob coming up from her throat before her breathing labored.
She couldn't remember who she was.
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Hyuuga Natsume stared blankly at the brown spot on the walls.
The ten year old boy who appeared older and wearier than his age sat slouched on the Academy's standard chair. His ebony hair covered half of his face while his eyes stared at the same spot on the walls since the moment he sat down. Natsume appeared to be cut off from reality, unresponsive and cold as ice. He was already wearing his uniform, intent on not showing any weakness than he already had.
The nameless Academy staff appeared quite unnerved by his silence.
"The matter is already settled…those guys from the Anti-Alice Organizations caught our security off guard. It did not help that one of our own betrayed us. The Academy would like to assure you that such unfortunate event would not happen again, it was a shock to everyone, I assure you," the man sneaked a peak at Natsume from his papers to gauge his reaction. The young prodigy did not even spare him a glance so the man continued fumbling on the briefing insured by the higher-ups. "We are taking this very seriously."
'They are really shook up by the kidnapping. Who would have guessed that Reo would be in league with AAO under that entire flighty pop star image? Not to mention their target was the Black Cat, if they succeed it would surely give the AAO a big advantage.' The man thought. The Black Cat was one of Academy's most active and dangerous agent, even if he was still a kid.
He finished his empty briefing; he was pretty sure the Black Cat or anyone else for the matter would want to hear the higher-ups cheesy excuses, and started to pack his things. It felt like a whole twenty minutes of talking to a wall. How did this kid's teachers stand him in classes? When he opened the door, the Black Cat spoke for the first time in the whole meeting.
"That girl…what happened to her?" the question was uttered in an expressionless voice but the man was surprised to discover that it actually spoke volumes about how the boy felt. The Black Cat was not made out of a block of ice after all.
The man paused from his departure but he did not turn to look at the Black Cat or offer him any comfort. He didn't think the boy would appreciate it.
"The girl is fine. She is admitted here in the Alice Hospital with you after the Academy rescued you. Remarkably, she does not suffer from any burn from the fire, only minor scratches and exhaustion. The Academy is still trying to figure out how she is involved in the incident and why is she not affected by your Alice." 'Because everything else got burned into ashes and we found her lying beside you in the burnt place unhurt' the man did not think it was possible to survive in the fire made by the Black Cat. He heard the stories.
"Actually the girl is speaking with a few of my colleagues as we speak now. If you want to, you can speak to her later."
The Black Cat appeared to brood over what he said and the man took the chance to leave.
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"What do you think you are doing? I am not going to leave you behind, its you they want."
"Baka girl," Natsume growled and tried to push her out of the door. The stupid girl stubbornly held her ground. Her wide golden eyes were bright on her soot covered face as she gave him a stubborn look. "You have nothing to do with this so GO!" his throat hurt and his body was shaking with fatigue. The wound on his stomach reopened and he was losing blood.
The girl, apparently, noticed his injury and fatigue and her conscience was against her leaving an injured person behind. This girl, this perfect stranger who had been at the wrong place on a wrong time and got dragged into this mess because of him, had no idea what he was capable of.
Natsume was trained to do this. She was not.
"I will leave but only with you! We are escaping together so that you can go back to your school. Your friends must be worried for you." Natsume didn't like to go back to the Academy but he disliked going to the AAO more. He didn't choose to enlighten the girl. She was an outsider. Why had Reo dragged an ordinary girl like her into this mess was beyond him but he needed to get her out of this place.
"You don't even know what you are saying, little girl." He coughed, shaking his head. He needed to blow this place up. He couldn't afford to let any information on the Academy slipped to the enemy. He was useless to the Academy now.
Natsume knew what he had to do.
He shook off the fierce grip on his arms and pushed the girl away and out of the warehouse with all of his might. The girl stumbled and sprawled on the dirt ground ungracefully. "Hey why did you—"
Natsume released his Alice and it erupted like a bomb around him. The flame burned red and blue and it devoured everything in it's' way. He hoped he caught Reo and his cronies in the fire but Natsume was sure the man was sneaky enough to escape it.
He burned and burned until he felt his inside flared up.
His Alice was alive and it wanted more. His Alice devoured his body, burning him and eating him away.
Natsume felt strangely at peace with his death. He felt detached from the pain, like he was a spectator witnessing a death sentence. It was an appropriate death for him. Burning himself with his own Alice. Burning a sin by its own weapon.
He embraced his death, knowing there was no salvation for someone like him.
Then as he slowly succumbed to the darkness, a bright light suddenly appeared and he felt like something cool and soft wrapped around him and kept him away from the burning pain. The light clashed with the darkness and chased it steadily away until Natsume finally fell into blissful unawareness.
"I will keep you safe…" a whisper that lingered with him into his dream.