The air was suffocating, filled with tension and malice. Natsume stood in front of Mikan, trying to shield her from the President.
"What do you want with her? Why are you always after her?" Natsume shouted, feeling Mikan's hands turn into fists on the back of his shirt.
No matter what. Natsume thought. No matter what happens I will always protect her.
"Tsk tsk tsk you little dirty fire cat. You shouldn't talk to your elders that way." Said the elementary school president.
"Elder? You? HaHaHa!!" Natsume laughed coldly.
"How can we consider someone who is shorter than us and who looks like a CHILD our elder?"
The air got colder, and the President's face twisted with rage.
"NO ONE! NO ONE SPEAKS TO ME THAT WAY!!" he sneered.
He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, pulled out a gun and pointed it at Natsume's chest.
And he shot him.
BAM!
Natsume, having been weakened by using his alice to much in the fight earlier barely had time to cover Mikan much less use his alice to burn the gun off of the presidents hand. The bullet would have went right through his heart if he hadn't shifted his body to his left to have the bullet hit him on the right side of his chest.
The entering of the bullet hurt, and he was sure his right lung was collapsing. But weirdly, he found himself numb, unable to feel the pain of the wound.
"NATSUME!" Mikan cried out, clutching onto his body, holding him steady.
Is this what has become of my body? It's been so beat up and abused that now I can't feel pain anymore? Mikan, I gotta keep protecting Mikan…
Natsume's body slowly dropped to the ground, Mikan trying desperately to hold his body so he wouldn't be hurt anymore than he was.
"NATSUME! NATSUME! ARE YOU OKAY? SPEAK TO ME NATSUME!" cried Mikan, her small, slender hands putting pressure on his wound to stop the bleeding. His eyes were wide open in shock, but they didn't seem to be clouded with pain. His breathing was shallow, and except for the slight movements of his chest, his whole body seemed to be paralyzed.
"It's okay Natsume, don't worry. I'll get help right away so don't worry."
As Mikan lifted her hands away from Natsume's wound she had realized that the wound had stopped bleeding and was now sealed with burnt, scarred flesh.
But that's impossible. Bullet wounds don't just stop bleeding and close themselves. What's happening?
Mikan stared confusingly at the wound site and noticed black markings starting to form around the wound. The markings were spreading slowly, branching out from the wound site to other areas of Natsume's body.
"Well now, my dear Mikan. Do you want to know what those marking are on your dear precious boyfriend?" the president asked, walking slowly towards the two.
"Those marks are made from the poison that I had shot him with in the bullet. Once the bullet enters the body, it slowly dissolves and releases small amounts of poison at a time. Of course, the smallest amount of the poison renders the body paralyzed and that's why he isn't responding to you right now, but once the body becomes saturated with the poison, he'll begin to go crazy with the pain. Every cell in his body will rupture. He will bleed out of his pores slowly, his organs shutting down simultaneously." he smiled, having much pleasure in his explanation.
"And if he doesn't bleed him self to death, he will suffocate to death, his collapsed lungs pressing heavily onto his strained heart…until the lost control of his alice…"
"BLOWS HIS BODY UP INTO NOTHINGNESS!" he laughed crazily, having truly gone mad.
"Shut up!" Mikan yelled. Brown eyes filled with tears of hatred seared over his face.
Turning her attention back on Natsume, she put her hands over his wound and started to use her STEAL ability to drain the poison from his body.
"Oh Mikan, that won't work my dear. You see, the poision in his body didn't come from a alice user, but it was synthetically made in a laboratory. As for as I know, your ability isn't capable in stealing such a thing. His fate is cruel isn't it? Well now, there is nothing left or him but to die, and for you to come with me."
He took one step towards Mikan, and it was his last.
BAM!
Mikan looked up. Just a couple of feet in front of her, the elementary school president was shot through his forehead. Dead. She knew he was dead the moment he hit the ground face down. But before he fell the look on his face, his expression, was one of disbelief, disbelief at the person who had shot him.
Mikan turned around to see who the shooter was, and couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it.
It was the Elementary Principal himself.
This man was old, wrinkles already permanent on his face. He was taller too, than the dead one beside her, but Mikan was sure that this was the real elementary school president.
"But how? How are there two of you?" Mikan said, still hovering over Natsume's body. Fifty percent of his body was now covered in the markings. She has to do something before his whole body is covered in the black poison.
"He was a clone of the original Elementary School President. And I am the original Elementary School President. You see, this was my alice, the ability to clone myself, but the draw back was that the clones would come out half of my real age. And as it turns out, the clones may look like me and have my powers, but they don't think the way that I do." The old man sighed, putting his gun on the inside of his jacket. He walked slowly towards Mikan and crouched down, looking regretfully at Natsume.
"One day, one of my clones had ambushed me in my office and had sent me to another dimension in time. Since then I have been stuck in another world it seems, until a stranger with the time traveling alice found me and brought me back here. I'd say that I have been gone for decades, and my clones have been running amok this place causing great crimes for this school. But it'll all end here Miss Mikan." And the old man gently held out his hand towards Mikan, waiting for her to take it.
"Wait, what do you mean it'll all end here? I still don't understand why your clones have been after me this whole time, and for my mother in the past." Mikan glared at him, still unable to put her trust in a man who caused her friends and family such grief, although he himself may have been a second hand party at fault.
"Well you see, with your stealing and nullifying abilities, you are practically invincible Mikan. The clones wanted your ability to steal other alices and to be able to input them into themselves. With the ability to clone and to choose what alice to have, it's like creating your own specific army. And with the nullifying alice, it's the best defense anyone can have at protecting themselves. Their ideas were all about mass producing themselves and gaining all the powerful alices in their hands." He explained.
"But you said 'they'. Does this mean there are still clones of yourself out there? Then how will this ever end?!" Mikan cried out.
"Don't worry, they've all been taken care of. For the past couple of months your uncle and mother have been working at finding all of the clones of myself and the one I had just killed was the last one. So, to end it all, I'm going to need your help Mikan. I need you to take my hand, and STEAL all of my alice from my body. Then…"
"DESTROY it."
Mikan looked down at his hand and then back at his face. He was smilling, so gently on his weathered face.
"It's the only way Mikan, to stop this evil alice of mine from ever replicating again." He grabbed her bloodied hand, and Mikan slowly put her other hand on top of his.
"Wait, before I do any of this, I have to ask you, do you know how to cure Natsume? Please! He has to live!" Mikan cried desperately.
"I'm sorry. I don't know exactly what the clone has given him, nor would I have any ability to cure him from it…but you know Mikan. I believe your ability is stronger than what you may think of it to be. If it's you, then I believe Natsume will survive some how. Believe in your ability. He is a very important person to you right?" he smiled as he finished.
Mikan nodded her head, fears subsiding. Clutching his hands, her hands slowly began to glow a warm, bright light and a clear blue stone started to form.
Once the glowing stopped, the old man grasped Mikan's hands one last time and said…
"Thank you...."
his hands slipped away from hers as his body fell sideways to the ground. On his face was that same gentle smile he had on before, but now…
He's dead.
Mikan held the alice stone in her hands, tears coursing down her face. She turned to Natsume and found his body nearly covered whole with the poison, but noticed now that his lips were moving.
"Natsume! Can you hear me? It's alright now. Everything's over. You don't have to worry anymore okay? I'm going to try and take the poison out of you.
His lips kept moving, forming words she couldn't hear, but some how, she knew what he was saying.
"Mikan…I'll…protect you…forever…"
Mikan leaned over Natsume, until her forehead touched his. Her hands touched his wound.
"No Natsume. I'll protect you. Now and Forever." She turned her head, closed her eyes, and gently kissed his lips.
A bright, intense light shined beneath her hands, the pressure so intense that it practically burned. But Mikan didn't care, nor did she feel any pain. All she felt and cared for right now was Natsume.
Black liquid leaked from beneath Mikan's fingers to the ground, and Natsume's skin slowly lost the black tinge, only to become ghostly white. The heat from her hands became warm, and then turned cool. Mikan slowly opened her eyes to look at Natsume's face, and found his eyes focused onto hers. She smiled weakly, happy to find him in a better state. As she brought her trembling hands towards his face, they fell short…
And she slipped limply to the ground…
It's over. It's finally over.
The next chapter will be the last. Hope you enjoy this!