Disclaimer: Gakuen Alice belongs to Tachibana Higuchi; Assassin's Creed belongs to Ubisoft.

::Ultimatum::

by

::cherii tomato::

Japan, 1652

In was a dark night. The moon was nowhere to be seen, causing the whole city to sink into a foreboding darkness. There wasn't even a dot of star illuminating the dark sky. It was past midnight and everyone in the city was at their own homes, drifted off peacefully into sleep. The city seemed somber, but it was peaceful nonetheless.

Ten feet above the grounds, on the rooftops of those sleeping souls, two hooded figures were running swiftly across the roof. One was chasing the other. The both of them were hopping from one roof to another, swinging from beam to beam. No one knew of their actions but themselves. But even at their rapid speed, there was barely any noise made by their feet and no one else was aware of their movements.

The figure being chased, who was wearing white, leaped off a beam and rolled into a ball to prepare for the oncoming impact from landing on the hard ground before sprinting off again. Chasing from behind, the other hooded figure in black kept up from the roofs, never losing sight of the target. Eventually, the figure in black pounced like a cat, preparing to land on the Assassin. But before the Templar could even lay a finger on the Assassin, the white hooded figure dropped onto the ground and rolled away before standing up again, a sword already drawn.

For the next ten minutes, the two were caught in a fierce swordfight. Metal clashed against metal as they attacked, deflected and parried. Both parties were well trained in swordfight so there was so apparent winner or loser. The Templar swung the sword down but the Assassin dodged it perfectly and gracefully. As revenge, the Assassin feigned a left before slashing at the right but the Templar had anticipated this attack so the latter's sword blocked it with a sharp clang. The Assassin then leaped up from the ground, the deadly sword swung above the Templar's head, inches from actually hurting the latter. The Templar then sidestepped, with one arm swooping to the Assassin's neck, the latter that was taken by surprise fell, back hitting the hard ground. They struggled on the ground for a while before the Assassin gave up completely with the Templar straddling on top. The Assassin's sword was thrown a few feet away from its master.

Panting, the figure in white smiled, satisfied even though beaten. "You've been training hard." The Assassin's voice came out as a melodious ring. The Templar leaned in till their faces were only millimetres apart.

"Where is it?" The Templar's blade was pressed against the Assassin's neck, though not hard enough not extract blood. "Give it to me."

A smile crept up the Assassin's face. "Of course, of course. We had a deal. It's in my left sleeve. Get it yourself."

Though a little wary of the Assassin, the Templar grabbed the left arm of the Assassin. Feeling a tube like object hidden inside it, the Templar reached a hand into it and extracted a gold tube with elaborate carvings. An eagle's head was carved onto the lid. Carefully, the tube was placed inside a large pouch before the Templar tied the strings of the pouch to the belt around his waist. The Templar then got up from the Assassin before readjusting his ruffled clothes.

The Assassin sat there for a moment, studying the Templar standing before her. She was amused at how different they both were. She was an Assassin while he was a Templar; she operates in white while he walks in black. He turned his body to his left to sheath his sword; this caused his mantle to fall across his right shoulder, the emblem of the Templar—a red cross—glared at the Assassin. She looked down at the bronze belt secured around her waist, where the Assassin emblem mocked at her.

They should be sworn enemies, all right.

The Templar looked up at her, his crimson eyes practically burning into her hazel ones. "A race, as always?" He proposed and she scanned her surroundings before pointing at a tall pagoda that was a few miles away.

"To the top." Without another word, the Assassin jumped up from the ground and broke into a run, her wide sleeves and the red sash belt around her waist flapped wildly behind her. She climbed up a wall and continued to run on the roofs.

The Templar was not left behind either, just a second after the Assassin had sprinted off, he too had run to another direction.

When the Assassin was just a few feet away from the pagoda, she leaped off the edge of the room and got hold of a protruding bar. After steadying herself for a few seconds, the Assassin began to hoist herself towards the top of the pagoda, her legs and arms moving in perfect sync. It took only a few minutes before she was standing at the top of the pagoda, overlooking the entire city to the mountains far away. A panting Templar joined her a while later.

"You might have gotten better at swordfights, but you're still so slow." The Assassin commented dryly. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the gentle breeze caressing her face and the occasional faint sounds coming from the nocturnal animals that broke the stillness of night. The Templar sat down on the roof, enjoying not only the breeze but also the view of the Assassin. His eyes were all over her body, taking in the fact on how the white garb she was wearing had wrapped around her every curve, outlining her voluptuous figure.

The Assassin turned around to stare at the Templar from underneath her hood. Slowly, she pushed it away, revealing the face of a young woman with a pointed chin, soft lips and a pair of heartbreakingly beautiful round eyes, her brown locks were tied into a tight bun. The Templar felt his breath being caught in his throat. The Assassin, eyes never leaving the Templar stepped over and knelt down to face him. They stayed in that position for a while, staring into each other's eyes before the Assassin leaned in to plant a soft kiss onto the Templar's lips.

"Hello Natsume," she greeted in a whisper as she pushed the Templar's hood away, revealing a head of silky raven hair and the facial features of a handsome young man with a strong jaw line and prominent cheekbones. He, as always, was not smiling but she could tell that he was happy to see her.

"Hello, Mikan." With that, he pulled her closer to him. She sat down on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, her head placed against his chest. His heartbeat was thumping steadily against her ear. The Templar wrapped his arms around her petite frame and he started to take out the pins that were keeping her hair in place. With two fingers on her crimson silk ribbon and a light tug, her brown locks fell out from the tight bun like a waterfall, cascading down her back.

The Templar thought that she was breathtaking.

Together, they sat there without a word spoken. The silence they shared was a comforting escape from the swordfights and runnings they had just now. Together, they enjoyed the tranquility of the night and also each other's company.

Mikan reached a hand to caress his face, looking lovingly into his eyes that resembled the colour of blood. "Tell me now," she began, "what's on your mind?"

Without giving her an answer immediately, Natsume gathered her fallen hair to one side before pressing a kiss to her shoulder, despite the fact that there was a piece of cloth separating his lips from her bare skin. "You're beautiful."

This caused a blush to appear on the Assassin's cheeks and a smile to form on her lips. She was quiet once more before she said, "I was thinking about Maria Thorpe. Have you ever heard of her?"

"Should I know about this person?"

"Why not? Odd that the Templars had decided to exclude her from your history lessons." Mikan tilted her head from one side to another. "Then you know who Robert de Sablés?"

Natsume replied with a curt nod. "He was one of the Grand Masters of the Knights Templar a few decades ago."

Miakn's fingers played with Natsume's raven locks. "Exactly. You see Natsume; you've probably already figured this out, that Maria Thorpe was a woman. She was also a Templar in 1190s. When de Sablé was still alive, he was quite taken with the woman, so he made Maria his steward. She was disguised as a man at that time. Once, she even disguised as Robert de Sablé, wanting to lure the Assassin that was about to take his life, out into the open."

"What does this has to do with anything?" There was a hint of impatience in Natsume's voice. All he wanted to do was to enjoy Mikan's soft body against his in silence, before sunrise does them apart.

Mikan didn't answer his question, merely shrugging it off. "After de Sablé's death, Maria was not quite favoured by his successor, Armand Bouchart. Since de Sablé's death was the cause of Maria's de-ranking, she sought out the Assassin who took de Sablé's life. But in the end, things didn't quite work out as planned. Bouchart never trusted her, even kept her prisoner once before she was rescued by the Assassin. But seeing that she was no longer accepted as a Templar, Maria chose to seek asylum with the enemies."

Natsume's body went rigid. "She became an Assassin." Natsume voiced out her unsaid thought. His voice was coated in disgust. To have someone defecting to the enemy, Natsume wanted to slash Maria into pieces for her disloyalty, given if she was still alive. Both for defecting and choosing to be an Assassin over a Templar.

Noticing the disgust in his voice, Mikan felt a stab of pain in her chest. She stood up from his lap and walked to the edge of the roof, looking over the entire city. "Yes, Maria became an Assassin. And Maria Thorpe was my ancestor."

She allowed the information to settle in, causing Natsume to feel slightly guilty at the fact that he had just insulted her ancestor. "I'm sorry, but why are you telling me all this?" Mikan kept her silence. But slowly, the realization seeped into the Templar. "You want me to be like her." It was not a question, but a statement.

Still, the Assassin kept her back facing the Templar. Suddenly, Natsume felt that he couldn't look at her. He felt betrayed. She was asking him to abandon the Templars and join her to become an Assassin. "Why should I be the one compromising?" He asked defiantly.

"Because you have a choice," she muttered sadly. Mikan knew that this wouldn't be easy, but this was their last chance. "I don't. I was never given a choice. We can't keep on meeting like this, Natsume."

The Templar stood up from the roof. He walked to Mikan's side and studied her profile "What do you mean by choice?"

Mikan turned her face to look at Natsume, sorrow swirling in her eyes. Though the lack of light, Natsume could somewhat make out the flecks of grey in them after many times of studying them up-close and carefully. "You chose to be a Templar while I didn't." Natsume caught the slight quiver in her voice. She was not the strong-headed, fiery Mikan he knew; the Mikan in front of him seemed like a little girl lost, scared and vulnerable. "Natsume, there wasn't a choice for me. I was born an Assassin, it flows in my blood. I am an Assassin. You, however, you chose to be a Templar."

The statement seemed to have fuelled the anger in the Templar for Natsume's nose flared. "A choice? How was I given a choice? I was raised by Templars after my mother abandoned me when I was still a child! If it weren't for the Templars, I wouldn't be here having this conversation with you, I would be dead!"

"Oh, so you repay them by joining their cult? Natsume," Mikan reached out to touch Natsume gently, but the latter jerked his arm away, leaving Mikan's hand in mid-air as she held back the tears threatening to fall. She dropped her hands to her sides and curled her fingers into fists. "You're not a bad guy, just brought up with messed up theories planted into your head. The Templars are anything but a good bunch."

There seemed to be a ball of fire burning in Natsume's eyes. "We seek for world peace; we seek to right what's wrong."

A scoff escapes her mouth upon hearing Natsume's statement. "Really now?" Mikan's eyes were burning back with an equal amount of ferocity. "And by what means, may I ask? Hmm? World domination, is it? Turning the entire world population into your mindless puppets? Their freewill ripped away from them? Is that what world peace means to you?"

Natsume took a step forward. The difference between their heights was emphasized with the proximity they were standing from each other. Their bodies were centimetres from touching. "At least," he bit out coldly, "I don't go around murdering people."

Mikan's eyelids formed into dangerous slits. "Randomly murdering? Natsume, we Assassins do not 'randomly' run around, killing people. Those people needed to die! And what about your bunch? What about the wars you've waged? The innocent lives you people have killed? Huh? That's not just killing, Natsume, it's massacre."

"You can't have peace without war, Mikan. And the people you killed, they were all Templars, with a fair amount of innocent guards being thrown into the batch. But most of them were my brothers!"

Somehow, the last sentence made Mikan hesitate. The word 'brothers' was echoing itself in her head. She understood his current feeling. Just recently, the Assassins had lost six more people; two of them were her closest friends while one was her real brother. The stamina she showed a while ago had died down completely in a second.

"Look, all I'm saying is that this can't continue. Not like this."

"What can't continue?"

"This!" She threw her hands up into the air with a roll of her eyes. "This relationship we have. You're a Templar, I'm an Assassin. There's a line between these two parties." To prove her point, Mikan pushed Natsume away from her before dragging a foot horizontally across the roof, creating an invisible line that separated the space between them. She pointed to Natsume's space. "Templar." And then to herself. "Assassin. It's either allies or enemies. The Templars and the Assassins have never been friends for the past five hundred years; we'll never be friends for the next five hundred. So that just leaves us with one option. We might as well better off be enemies."

Again, they were quiet for a minute before Natsume muttered, "No."

The Assassin looked up at the Templar who had his eyes fixed on the 'line'. "What do you mean no?"

"We're not enemies." Was his simple reply. He walked a few steps parallel to the invisible line before walking around it, effectively not crossing the line. When he stopped in front of Mikan, Natsume looked at her, into her eyes. "You don't love your enemies." He reached out to put his hands around her waist and then gently pull her to him. Seeing Mikan in such a vulnerable state, seeing her being a little girl lost made Natsume's heart ache. Their previous arguments were all forgotten as he cupped her face with his large, rough palm. His thumb caressed her cheek lovingly. "You don't love your enemies," he repeated.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, you're not my enemy. Simply because I can't do anything but love you." At the end of his sentence, his head leaned in to kiss Mikan gently on the lips before it evolved into something more passionate. Their lips moved together in a harmonious sync. Natsume wrapped an arm around her waist while the other remained on her face. Mikan kept her both hands by her sides. A tear unconsciously made its way down her cheeks, to their lips.

"But you're still a Templar." Was the first thing the Assassin said when they broke apart. Natsume placed a feather-light kiss onto her forehead.

"I know. But I can't. I'm sorry."

"It's alright. I understand. I'm sorry too."

The Templar was only given a second to process her words because the next second, he felt a sharp pain penetrating into his chest. Natsume stared at the girl in front of him with his eyes widened. There was a myriad of emotions floating in the eyes that resemble two pools of oolong tea. Pain, grief, guilt, remorse. The blade that was punctured into his heart was retracted back into Mikan's vambrace before he fell forwards onto Mikan, eyes still remaining wide open.

Holding onto Natsume's lifeless body, Mikan felt herself getting choked up with tears as she laid him down on the roof in a supine position. "I'm sorry it had to end this way," she said between sobs and with two fingers, she closed his eyelids shut, "rest in peace." Although not one to cry frequently, Mikan allowed her tears to fall freely, her nose to sniffle and her voice to come out as a wail. She untied the pouch on his belt and checked that the gold tube was still safely inside it. She took it out and placed it back into her sleeves. Then, she leaned in to kiss the dead Templars lips softly, savouring the last remnants of warmth in his body. Just one stab from the hidden blade into his heart and he was dead. Mikan knew that he had been in lethal fights before and had faced countless of near-death experiences, but who would have thought that his life would end right after a kiss with an Assassin he fell in love with? Irony has a funny way in incorporating itself into life.

Rising up from her kneeling position, Mikan began to pin her fallen hair into a tight bun before securing it with another crimson ribbon. "No more tears," she told herself while pulling her hood with an beak at its tip back onto her head, hiding her face from the world once more. From above, she heard a shrill cry. When she tilted her head, what greeted her was the shape of a large eagle, soaring in circles above her. Mikan stepped to the edge of the roof, her body bent into a crouch. She turned her head around to look at Natsume's body one last time. If she was given a choice, she would've given him a proper burial, and not let his body rot and decay on the top of a twenty-story high pagoda. But someone will find him when they see a body on the roof from afar, and that someone will give him the burial he deserves. A drop of tear escaped from the corner of her left eyes.

"Goodbye Natsume."

And then she jumped.

Originally posted on : 22/12/2010

Reposted on : 30/7/2011