Chapter 1: Just A Normal Ten-Year-Old Girl

A contribution to the non-existent non-romance section of this fandom. There will be no romance whatsoever in this story... but I guess I can't stop you from shipping a pairing.

Genres: Mystery, friendship, adventure, maybe a tiny bit of angst if you squint, and possibly humour if you happen to find anything I write funny.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice.

Sen Hara was just a normal ten-year-old girl.

A normal ten-year-old girl with the Invisibility Alice.

A normal ten-year-old girl with the Invisibility Alice on a job.

A normal ten-year-old girl with the Invisibility Alice on a job to infiltrate one of the largest companies in the country and come back with some of their most secretive documents.

Oh yeah. This was going to be fun.

...

Sen didn't dare to make a sound.

It was night time; the normally lively business building was abandoned, making her job of sneaking in much easier. Silently, she crept through the halls, her feet not making as much of an echoing sound as she walked. She took slow, deep breaths, careful not to let a single slip-up happen. There were no weapons on her; she simply didn't need them. She was not going to get caught. Simple as that.

Sen froze when she heard someone walking towards her. A man was rushing towards the exit, his coat half on, his bag half zipped, as he passed her without so much of a second glance. It was almost as if he didn't even see her in the first place.

Of course not. She was invisible.

Smirking to herself, she continued towards her goal when she was sure the man was out of sight. She had done things like this many times before; in fact, it was probably all that she's done her whole life. Infiltrating buildings, spying on people, sneaking her way into forbidden areas, it was all second nature to her.

Reaching the room at the end of the hall, she slipped into the small storage room, pausing to see if anyone was inside. When the coast was clear, she shut the door quietly and flipped out a flashlight from her pocket, twirling it carelessly around as she opened one drawer, followed by another, followed by another, and another. Rummaging through the files kept in each one, her quick fingers skimmed through each document with lightning speed.

"Let's see what they have in here," She hummed to herself, her tone sounding as if she had just found lost treasure. Finally, she stumbled upon the folder she was looking for and pulled it out, a triumphed look on her face as she held it above her head like a prize before—

—the lights turned on.

Sen flicked her flashlight off in less than a second. Panic surged through her body. Another man stood by the doorway, his hand still on the light switch as he scanned the room. He took a few steps directly towards the drawers that Sen was standing in front of.

This was it. Anyone would be caught in this situation.

But not Sen. Sen was still invisible and the man hadn't noticed her yet. Sen still had a chance.

"I knew I had forgotten to do something," The man muttered to himself, cursing casually, completely oblivious to the fact that he had company in the room. As he shut the drawers, Sen jumped to the side, dodging his hands by just an inch and landing silently back on her toes. If his fingernails even as much as scrapped against her, it would all be over. He would know that she was there and the mission would've been a failure.

She glanced down at the folder in her hands which was also currently invisible. She didn't know the details of this job, just that a rival company asked her to steal this document which apparently contained some secret that would help them "rise to the top", as the manager put it. Sure, it was the dirty way of doing things, but Sen couldn't care less about that. She was just here to do the job; not to ask questions.

After all the drawers were closed, the man left and the room was dark again. Sen let out a breath she had been holding in subconsciously before taking everything she needed and sprinting the hell out of there.

...

"What took you so long?" Ryo was there to greet her demandingly at the entrance of the building. "I thought you had gotten caught for sure!"

Sen rolled her eyes and waved the thought away dismissively. "You know how unlikely that is, Ryo. Some people were still in the building so it took a bit longer than I expected. But if you were so worried, why didn't you come in yourself, scardy-cat?"

Ryo sighed, refusing to let himself get worked up over this. It was Sen who had accepted this job; not him. He was just tagging along because he happened to work for the company that hired her and he was there to keep an eye out for her even though he knew that she was more than capable of doing the job herself.

Sen handed over the documents to Ryo and in exchanged, he paid her for doing the job. She counted the money happily and stuck the bills in her pocket. But before she could take a step, a huge wave of water poured down on her and she was soaked completely from head to toe. Clenching her hands into lethal fists, it took all of her willpower to stop herself from punching the guy in the face.

"Have a safe walk home!" Ryo called out after her, almost mockingly. "Make sure to dry yourself up!"

As Sen walked away into the darkness of the night, she cursed repeatedly over and over again in her head. A gust of wind blew in her direction and she shivered. This had to be at least the fifth time she got drenched this week.

Damned Water Alice.

...

Sen collapsed onto her couch. Running a hand through her hair, she sighed and closed her eyes. Seriously, using her Alice took up way too much of her energy and it took everything in her just to will herself to keep walking until she reached her house. On the way home, she felt herself coming close to slipping unconscious multiple times.

After maintaining her invisibility for this long, she needed to rest. Soon, she drifted off into a deep sleep...

... which lasted about five seconds.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Who, for god's sake, would knock on someone's door in the middle of the night? Whoever it is, they'll go away if I ignore them long enough. And so, Sen convinced herself that whatever it the problem this person had could wait until morning or whenever it was that she woke up. She flipped over to her other side and settled down once again, attempting to get some sleep, hopefully for more than five seconds this time.

No such luck.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I dare whoever is on the other side of the door to knock one. More. Time. Sen thought angrily to herself, teeth gritted.

Knock—

"ARG! Fine!" Sen cried out in frustration, throwing her hands up in the air and jumping off the couch. What did she have to do to get some peace and quiet here so that she could rest after a long night of work? Grumpily, she flung open the door, not even bothering to greet the person on the other side. "If you don't have something important to say, you'd better get out of my face right now."

The man cringed and took a step back in fear. Sen's light, brown hair was a mess and her eyelids were half drooped, probably resembling a lot like the Greek monster—Medusa. (Though that might not have been such a bad thing for Sen because there were lots of people in this world who annoyed the hell out of her and she would happily turn them all into stone without a second thought.)

"I-I have a letter for you, Hara-san," The man stuttered. He handed the envelop to her before bowing down in apology multiple times. "I'm sorry for interrupting you! I'm so sorry!" And then he fled.

Tch. That coward. Sen couldn't believe that the idiot would waste her precious sleep time just to hand her a freaking letter. She walked back into her house and turned on the lights. Well, now that she was completely awake (because of somebody), she decided to go ahead and read the letter.

Dear Sen,

Hey, Sen-chan! How have you been doing?

How has she been doing? She just completed a job only to be drenched in water by Ryo and then woken up by some stupid mailman. So you could say that she's been doing great. Thanks for asking.

Knowing you, you've probably got a lot of job requests, don't you? Sorry to add to your pile, but I have a favour to ask of you. There's a rumour going around that we're going to get attacked in about a month or so and we'd like you to come with a strategy to prevent this. We don't really want to get any of the students involved, so I figured you'd be perfect for this job since you normally work alone! Come meet me at Alice Academy at any time so that we can discuss this further if you'd like.

Love,

Narumi L. Anju.

P.S. I miss you, Sen-chan! You should drop by more often!

There was a little heart at the end of the letter. Typical Narumi.

She had worked for him many times before—you could say that they were "acquaintances"—but she really didn't like that man very much. Sen groaned. He always seemed to be hiding something and he always, always insisted on calling her "Sen-chan" no matter how many times she told him not to.

But even so, she would leave for Alice Academy tomorrow. Her pay from working there was always good and Sen would do whatever she could to get money because the world is all about money. And for someone as poor as her, barely being able to pay the taxes of using water and electricity, she really, really needed it.

...

Now Sen Hara was just a normal ten-year-old girl on a job to do Narumi a favour by protecting Alice Academy from an unknown source of evil while making sure that no information of this leaked out to the thousands of students at the school.

She wasn't so sure that this was going to be fun anymore.

I estimate this story to be from 5-10 chapters in length.

I will try my best to update frequently. No promises, though.

Follow; favourite; REVIEW! (Please? Come on, I said "please"!)

And read on,

~Madin456.