Disclaimer : All recognizable characters belong to Tachibana Higuchi and the 'Games' part of this story belongs to Suzzane Collins. This story is mine with many parallels to the Gakuen Alice manga.
A/ N : Thanks for all the reviews guys! They totally made my day :D And sorry for the super long wait! My Finals get over in 3 days but I just had to post this today. THE HUNGER GAMES RELEASED TODAY! EEK! So this chapter is basically for THG (and Peeta Mellark, and all you guys too! :D)
The Alice Games
Chapter Nine: Blue
0
My eyes widen with disbelief as I realize what he said was a name. Presumably the name of the girl. But how does he know her? And why is she out here by herself?
"Natsume," the girl quietly murmurs as she walks towards us, "it's so good to see you."
Natsume blinks rapidly a couple of times as if he's trying to figure out whether she's real or not. After a few seconds of thorough checking (blinking) his lips quirk up and he smiles.
That's right.
He smiles.
No smirks.
No sneers.
A genuine smile.
"I thought I'd never see you again," he exhales softly, his eyes soft. "Wow, you've grown."
She chuckles slightly. "I'm not eleven years old anymore, Natsume," she says wryly, her black hair moving behind her like a cascade of water. Her eyes, which are as red as rubies flicker to mine and she grins at me.
Black hair...red eyes...
"You're Natsume's sister?" I blurt out, making the connection. She has to be, the resemblance between the two is quite striking.
Aoi smiles at me. "Yes, I am." She looks back at Natsume. "She's pretty smart."
I giggle as I see Natsume's expression. He looks down at his sister with mock horror feigned on his face. "My God, Aoi. If you're calling a dweeb like her smart, you've totally lost your Hyuuga brain."
Hyuuga brain?
"The dweeb has a name you know," I put in indignantly. Seriously. He doesn't get a right to call me a dweeb. I mean, who the hell is he to judge me?
Natsume waves his hand dismissively at my comment. "No one wants to talk to the dweeb."
"I do!" Aoi says while giggling. "You're Mikan Sakura, aren't you?"
I blink, absolutely confused. Sure, I might have seen her before in some sort of virtual world, but really, how the hell does she know my name? That's just plain creepy. Natsume seems pretty lost too.
"You know the dweeb's name?" Natsume blurts out, his eyebrows furrowed, looking as confused as me.
The corner of Aoi's lips twitch and she looks down at her feet. "We've met before," she says quietly as she lifts her eyes up to meet mine. "You do remember me, don't you?"
I nod my head absently, words not being able to come out of my mouth. I'm far too confused. Was that virtual world real? Oh lord.Green...
A shiver runs down my spine as I imagine her out there somewhere with all her arrows, probably looking for me. With my luck, she's probably in this very forest or something.
Hell...
"How the hell do you know Polka?" Natsume demands as he narrows his eyes at his sister. "In fact, why in the world did you come here? I thought what I said last time was final."
Aoi shrugs her shoulders with ease. "I can do as I please," she tells her brother. "Though I really don't have that much time on my hands."
"Don't you live in 5?" I ask her, finally finding my voice and to my utter astonishment, it's steady. Not quivering like I'd thought it'd be.
Aoi's eyes look sad as she answers me. "No...not anymore.." she says the last word so quietly that I wonder if she even said it. I reach out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She probably changed districts like me so I do understand her.
As I move over to touch her shoulder, Aoi flinches away. "No, don't," she says quickly, taking a step back, "My Alice will de-activate."
"Wait...what?" I backtrack. So if I touch her, her Alice will de-activate? Was she even using her Alice right now?
"She has the mirage Alice," Natsume explains to me and then proceeds to look at his sister rather tiredly. "Really Aoi, I thought I told you not to do this anymore. It's not worth the risk."
Aoi's lips press into a thin line. "I'm not risking anything."
Natsume rolls his eyes and then shakes his head. "Aoi...that day I told you not to come anymore! Didn't I tell you that it's even more dangerous now? I don't know how you did it all before all these years, there must've been some glitch, but he's more careful now and when you go back it'll be he—"
"Nothing will!" Aoi interrupts harshly. "It's fine Natsume! I came here for a reason."
"What do you have to tell me?" He asks her, his voice soft—something I'd never imagine him to do for anyone else. "It must be something imp—"
Aoi shakes her head. "It's isn't about you, Natsume. I have to speak to Mikan."
"Well whatever you want to say you can say it in front of me." Natsume folds his arms across his chest, "I'm your brother and I have a righ—"
"No you don't!" Aoi exclaims. "This hasn't got anything to do with you! Why can't you just get that?"
"Aoi…"
"I want to speak to Mikan alone and that's final."
I widen my eyes. Surely this couldn't be good news…
He quirks an eyebrow at her before letting out a deep breath. "Fine," he says, but I can tell that he isn't pleased by the tight set of his jaw. "Be that way." And with that he brushes past me and saunters off to God knows where.
For a moment I get this random urge to laugh at Natsume's childish behaviour. So what if his sister wants to talk to me instead of him? That doesn't give him a reason to go sulk in a corner. But then the longing to laugh slowly dies away.
He just walked away withmybag.
Damn him.
I knew there was a downside to this!
"I know this all must be pretty bizarre for you," Aoi starts saying, "but what I'm going to tell you is very very important."
"What is it?" I murmur, craning my neck to spot that idiot. I hope he hasn't walked too far ahead. It'll be dark in a few hours and if I don't manage to find him, I'll be dead. Seriously, with no weapons on me, I'm as defenseless as a two year old kid.
Aoi bites her lips before leaning over to whisper in my ear.
I freeze and the colour drains out of me rapidly. My breath hitches and I suddenly find it rather difficult to breathe. I force the words to come out of my lips. "How do you—?" I start, but my voice falters. But Aoi seems to understand what I meant to ask her.
"I'm his prisoner," her tone is light but her face tells otherwise.
Prisoner? What the-? "But...but...how—" my voice halts when I notice that there's a hole in her stomach. Literally. There's a big hole in her stomach, like that part has vanished or something.
"Aoi!" I point at her stomach."Tha—"
She looks down and curses. "Damn. My time's up." She scowls at her stomach (under normal circumstances that would've caused me to laugh) and then looks back at me. "But Mikan just remember what I said, be careful," she gives me a small smile. "And please, watch out for my brother. He may be a total pain in the arse but—" she hesitates but then shakes her head and continues, "he may be the biggest arse in the world but he's the only family I've got left and I don't want to lose him."
And with that, Aoi's whole body dematerializes and she disappears into thin air.
Within a flash, my knees give out and I sink down onto the forest floor.
Family.
I've managed to lose them all.
0
I close my eyes as I lean my head against the back of a tree. I don't know how long I've been sitting here, with my back propped against the trunk of some random tree. Maybe it's been a few minutes, maybe it's been an hour, maybe it's been a few hours. I don't know. And I don't care.
After Aoi disappeared, I hadn't even bothered to look for Hyuuga. He can rot away in this place for all I care. I snort as I shuffle against the tree trunk. Who am I fooling? If anything,I'llbe the one rotting, not him. He's the one with all the weapons and god knows he's probably been here countless times before. But a small voice in the back of my head admonishes me for being so ridiculous. If Hyuuga had actually been here before, why did he go back to D5? Probably because he figured that he'd be a goner here all by himself, another voice, presumably not the saint like one mutters darkly.
I let out a sigh and pull my legs to my chest. I can't believe I have different voices inside my head. This cannot possibly be normal.
Since when has anything about you been normal?
I grit my teeth in frustration and my hands clench into fists beside me. I know I'm a total freak! I don't need my conscience rubbing it in too. Ever since I was little, I wanted to tour the world, to see everything. I wanted to go to Egypt— all the stories about the mummies and pharaohs fascinated me and I was always in awe of Cleopatra. I wanted to go to the moon, outer space seemed totally cool. I wanted to go to the Amazon Rainforest at one point. I think I even wanted to visit the Alice City. Rumours have it that that city is beautiful. It's every Alice's dream. Too bad Kuoniji owns it along with everything else.
Uncle had laughed at my dreams. He'd said that I could always fantasize, but none of it would actually come true. We were stuck here in this goddamn country for the rest of our lives.
I wondered from time to time what the rest of the countries thought of this. Did they know that we even existed anymore? They probably didn't. I bet Kuoniji had somehow managed to clear all traces of Japan from all the Global maps. Japan was once a prosperous country, we were industrial giants, and our economy would always rapidly increase despite the numerous hardships we had to face. But this hardship...it will probably last for eternity.
Alices and Civilians lived together in harmony, we all co-existed peacefully. But then that bastard just had to ruin everything. The day he overthrew the original Alice Academy, there was War everywhere. Tons of people were killed, both Alices and Civilians and in the end, he somehow managed to slaughter every single non-Alice.
I shudder when I think about that. I'm so glad that I hadn't been born then...but then again, being alive now is even worse. Though there is no more large scale slaughter, the Games are still here and truthfully, this is possibly the worst thing I can imagine. Children killing each other for the amusement of some sick deranged man? That's completely inhumane! Uncle would've—
Uncle.
I let out an unstable breath. This...all of this just seemed too surreal.
"Your Uncle isn't alive anymore, Mikan. He defied the President's orders."
How could she possibly know? I mean, we're basically strangers and she knows about my uncle? She could be wrong, I tell myself. Uncle wouldn't do anything like that, he's too smart to make a mistake. But deep down inside something tells me that she isn't. Wrong, that is. After all, I had seen her before —bizarre as it is and my dream the other night...it honestly can't be a mere coincidence. And her being his prisoner...
I open my eyes slowly and I'm shocked to feel that my cheeks are moist. I hadn't notice that I'd been crying. Normally, I refrain from shedding tears. It makes me feel weak and I hate it when people see me cry. But right now, I don't give a shit.
I'll probably never go back to D5. I'll probably end up dying here in the forest. There's no way I can make it back before the sun sets- it's already pretty low in the horizon so I think I've got only an hour or two before it becomes twilight. And when it becomes dark...
I might find a bear, I think wryly to myself.
Even though it wouldn't do me any good.
I haven't got any means to extract a tooth from anything nor do I have the strength to do so. All I want to do is lie down and gaze at the sky and brood and wallow in self-pity. It's extremely selfish of me and childlike but honestly, what do I have to live for? I don't have any parents and my last of kin is dead. Furthermore, I'll never be allowed to meet my friends ever again and they're —
"Polka."
My back stiffens and just like that, that one word changes everything.
I slowly lift my head up from my knees to see Natsume standing a few feet away from me, near some bushes. A small gasp escapes my lips when I take in his tattered form. His shirt is torn from the side and his jeans are ripped till his knee. I look up at his face and grimace when I see the injury on his forehead; it's enough to make me feel uneasy.
"You're bleeding," I say as I get up from my position and walk towards where he's standing. "Shit Natsume, you're bleeding like crazy."
He shrugs his shoulder impassively and then rummages through his pocket. "Here," He places something sharp inside my palm.
I look at the thing curiously. It looks like a—
"It's the bear tooth," Natsume says after a couple of seconds of waiting for my reply.
Oh.
Ahh.
I so knew that.
"Where did you get it from?"
He scoffs and rolls his eyes at me. "A bear."
Thanks for stating the obvious, moron.
"No," I shake my head, "I meant, how did you get it? You didn't kill the thing, did you?"
"Of course not," he says fluidly, "I just went up to the bear and pulled out one of its teeth."
Shock flits across my face but then I realize the absurdity of what he just said. "Har har, you think you're so funny, don't you?"
"Maybe there's a reason why I'm not laughing."
Stupid smartass.
I open my mouth to say something extraordinarily witty back at him but my gaze drops down to his arm —which to my dismay, is cut severely.
"Oh lords Natsume," I whisper as I step closer to him to observe his cut, "Did you wrestle with the bear?"
"No…" He says and I immediately feel a huge wave of relief wash over me. "I wrestled with the tiger."
What the heck is wrong with this guy?
"You wrestled with a tiger!" I all but screech. "Have you gone absolutely mental?"
Natsume kind of winces at the loudness of my voice. "Well it just jumped on me after I killed the bear. What was I supposed to do?"
I scowl at him. "Oh, gee I don't know," I start, my voice dripping with sarcasm, "Shoot it, perhaps?"
His lips twitch slightly. "I sort of lost your bag."
I let out a small groan.
Great.
Just great.
This was terrific.
I look up at the sky. The sun has already set and it's beginning to get dark. There is no way we'll make it to the Academy before nightfall.
I sigh.
"Looks like we're going to have to spend the rest of the night here."
Natsume lets out a grunt. I cock an eyebrow at him. This was his fault, not mine.
This was definitely going to be a very long night.
0
"Could you try not to damage me more? I'm already bleeding to death."
I send him a glare as I continue to mend his wounds. We had somehow managed to find a small stream nearby and I had immediately insisted upon cleaning his wounds. I couldn't let him just bleed like that in front of me. Heck, I'm sure I can't do that to anyone. I'm just not like that.
But now I'm seriously having second thoughts.
"Can youshutup?" I hiss menacingly at him as I pour water over his hand. "This is allyourbloody fault in the first place! If you hadn't been so moody, none of this would've happened!"
He scowls at me. "I was not moody."
I throw him a look before I proceed to patch his arm up with a leaf — weird, I know but really can you blame me? All the First Aid was in my bag...which he so conveniently lost.
Moron.
"Yes, you were," I say as I tie the leaves around his arm. "If you hadn't stalked off after Aoi said that she wanted to talk to me then you wouldn't have gotten jumped by a tiger."
He grunts.
"Really how did you kill it?" I ask, genuinely curious. I mean, how did he? He didn't have any weapons on him.
Natsume winces ever so slightly when I tighten the leaves with a stem of a flower. "I used my dagger."
Oh.
So he did have a weapon on him. That sneaky bastard. To think I was sort of admiring him for killing a tiger with his bare hands.
"There." I beam as I tighten the last stem. "You're as good as new."
Natsume scoffs when he sees his arm. "I wouldn't say that this is new, Polka. My arm looks like I've taken a trip to the florist."
I gape at him. He sure has some nerve. "Well if you hadn't lost my bag I would've been able to put on a real band aid!"
I was expecting him to say something sarcastic back at me, like call me a dweeb or something but you know what he did?
He flicked my forehead.
Yes, that's right.
The stupid moron flicked my forehead.
"Why in the world did you do that?" I ask, indignant. "You can't go around—"
"Because you're annoying," he interrupts me. "Now, quit talking. You'll attract the animals."
I open my mouth to tell him that's he's talking bollocks but then I snap it shut. The moron does have a point. There could be loads of wild animals frolicking around here so it would be wise for me to just stay quiet. I cross my arms over my chest. "What do we do now?"
He closes his eyes for a few brief seconds and I take that time to let my gaze linger on his face. He actually doesn't look so intimidating when his eyes are closed, he looks normal, I guess. Not like some crazy sixteen year old who has seen things normal sixteen year olds have never seen before. In fact, he is kind of attractive. In a badass kind of way— which is totally not my type. I'm a total sucker for cute boys which Natsume is not. Plus his lips are so...thin and they're curling upwards…
"Can I help you with something?" Natsume asks, his eyes dancing with amusement as he eyes me.
I turn instant traitor against my gender.
"Yes, you can," I say curtly, not at all enjoying the mischievous glint in his eyes. "Tell me, what do we do now?"
He licks his lips, which causes me to scowl darkly. Is he trying to be funny? Because if anything, it's just irritating me. "How good are you at climbing trees?"
That totally catches me off guard. "Wha—what?"
He rolls his eyes. "How good are you at climbing trees? Like have you had any experience at it before or anything?"
I shake my head slowly. "Umm...no. There weren't many trees back in 4."
He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "Well that's just too bad," he says while smirking mischievously.
I gulp.
This wasn't going to be good.
0
"I swear if I fall I'm going to kill you." I hiss as I shift to move away from him. This causes the branch to move vigorously which only increases my nervousness. I can't believe bloody Hyuuga convinced me to climb this damn tree. I hadn't even known that I had it in me. Well he did help me out but still. I thought I'd just tumble off the first branch itself. We are definitely twenty feet above the ground and if I fall I'll be a goner. On the bright side, it isn't possible for any bears or tigers to get me up here.
I hear Natsume snort. "You can't kill me if you fall," he says brusquely."You'll already be dead."
"Well I'll just drag myself back from purgatory and kill you," I bite out. "How does that sound?"
"Lame," he responds as he shifts a bit. The branch squeaks.
"Stop that!" I hit his shoulder. "If you keep moving then the branch might break!"
I can practically feel him roll his eyes even though I can't see it. The sun has already set and it's getting darker by the second. "Stop moaning Polka. The branch is very sturdy. It won't break," he informs me. "Well it might if you randomly have an urge to dance or something," he adds.
Now I snort. "Why the hell would I dance?"
He shrugs. "I dunno. You seem like the tree-dance-girl type."
What the hell?
"And you're the sulking-because-my-sister-didn't-want-to-talk-to-me type," I retort back.
"I did not sulk," he practically growls. "I was just furious. I told her not to—" he starts but then stops abruptly. "Never mind," he says as an afterthought. "It doesn't matter."
I raise an eyebrow. What was he going to say? I wait for a while, thinking that he might continue but he doesn't. All I hear is the sound of the crickets chirping and other bugs buzzing around.
"Hey Natsume," I start as the seconds tick by, "Aoi isn't 16 is she?"
I look at him to see that his eyes are closed.
"She isn't," he tells me with his jaw clenched tight.
"Then why—?"
His eyes flash open and he regards me coldly. "Stay out of this,Sakura."
I don't know why but the way he says my surname completely shuts me up. I knew that any more questions on this topic were clearly not welcome and I'd be an idiot if I didn't understand what he had just said. So I did the only other thing that I could possibly have done.
I leant back against the trunk of the tree and shut my eyes.
And immediately sleep engulfed me.
0
Has anyone seen the The Hunger Games yet? Because if you have, I'm officially jealous. I can't watch it now (Grr exams) and I have to wait for like three more days to do so :(
On to another issue. Would anyone here like to beta this story? I really don't have that much time on my hands to re-check for spelling/grammar mistakes— I mean, of course I do edit my work but there are always some things I miss. Besides, I think that having a beta will be good for me. Since I don't know how to actually get one, I'm just saying this in my author's note. Smart, eh? ;)
If you're interested, please contact me by sending a P.M or something.
How about a review for the Hunger Games sake? ;)
Carolle Royale
