hi ppl!! i am uploading this pretty fast compared to the other times...hehe...anyway,im sorry it's so short but it's really just a filler chapter. the next one will be up late coz my exams are coming and i havent finished studying!! i noe!! sorry lar...anyway, this chap is prety depressing and sappy...so i hope you are okay with this...after this, i have story i've been wanting to write since i got the muse from 'Little Black Book'...mwahaha...so i hope you like this and will review!! thanks!!

love much,
Blase

Life is not what I thought it was
Twenty-four hours ago.
Still I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with You.

And I'm not who I thought I was
Twenty-four hours ago
Still I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with You

Twenty-Four by Switchfoot

Chapter 11: Only In Your Mind

Swaying and pale, Mikan stood in front of me as Hyuuga rushed forward; he wasn't fast enough to catch her before she fell to the ground, eyes closed. Her body lay limp but the death grip she had on the Slaughter never slacked. She'd protect it with her life if necessary.

I knew instantly what was wrong just by looking at her, curled around her left arm. I felt that queasy nag of guilt in my gut. I should have. I knew I should have told Tsukaima, anyone even, about her condition. But that damned loyalty we were trained to have, the loyalty I had towards her was constantly clogging up my mind.

Kokoroyomi pushed forward pressed what I figured was an Alice stone imbued with the healing powers of Imai Subaru to her skin. I realized that was what had been suppressing the pain of the poison for so long.

"Mikan's orders," was his explanation when Tsukaima questioned him.

She knew this was going to happen, dammit! I made it to where she lay and tore off her sleeve. The veins of red crisscrossed over an expanse of paper-white skin. It must have taken at least four doses of the poison for it to have acted so fast. Tsukaima's eyes narrowed.

"Several doses of concentrated NightSnake poison had been administered in one shot," he reported. I breathed easy. "Why are you so relieved?" he demanded, anger instantly shooting into his eyes. "That much poison can kill a human in a time span of three hours."

"We forget we aren't exactly human, Tsukaima," I snapped back. I was pissed enough, starting with the fact that Sakura had never told anyone but Kokoroyomi about her decaying condition and still fought despite the needed rest one needed when injected so many doses.

"Janus operatives, willing or not, are trained to withstand twelve concentrated doses of this particular poison and more than fifteen of deadlier ones. She'll live, especially since she's immortal but the only poison that no one, not even an Immortal can take and live is nightshade, a fatal cousin of NightSnake. Rumour has it, Sakura lives through eighteen doses.

"No, this wasn't an attempt on her life," I said. "Just a desperate or stupid curve ball to slow her down. Idare must be getting sloppy…and desperate."

"Where is that charlatan's lapdog?"

"Dead," I said nonchalantly. "Knowing Sakura, she probably got too frustrated with him and got rid of him quickly. He isn't going to bother us anytime in the near future. Unless, of course, his ghost comes back."

"Let's get her back to the Academy hospital first before we talk strategy," Yuu piped up from the sidelines, his face blanching white at the veins. "Imai-sensei can at least clear her blood system."

"'Fraid not, squeaky," I said. "No Alice can cure this one. The poison would be transferred to him. One of the reasons why this poison is so damned annoying. If anything tries to come in and mess up the poison's molecular structure, it attacks the attempter. Like a sort of thigmotropism; a touch-me-not's defence system. We do have to get her back to the Academy. She'll need some care at the least."

They all looked pointedly at me and they really brought the phrase 'if looks could kill' to full bloom. "Chill, dudes, this was just a scheme to slow her down. Janus couldn't move to Castella Valley safely if Sakura knew how to get there, which she does. He would be a sitting duck in with all the stuff he'd be moving and even if it's a fifty-fifty percent chance, he can be at a high risk of being killed. If Sakura found them while they were moving, they would be very vulnerable."

"Let's just get back home," Natsume growled. He hid his ear in his voice but it was clear as day in those iridescent scarlet eyes.

"Home," Kokoroyomi whispered in an ethereal voice that called Imai Hotaru to mind. "It seems like a dream really. I don't know…if I'd ever have thought that way if I'd never gotten those memories."

"The good thing, Koko," Natsume said in surprising tender, "home is real and sadly, those dreams and memories are too. But never mind…we're going to home."

Home…

--,--,--,--,

Darkness shot her like an arrow through eternal nightmares. She ran through a hall of horror, eyes of the terrorising portraits following her every step. She grasped the handle of an ornate door resembling that of the second principal's apartments and willed its entrance open. It did but the cool metal wrapped itself around her wrist and crawled up her arm as a snake. The scream she needed to release caught in her throat in a clog of bile and she felt herself choking.

Her feet lost the ground's stability as she plunged through the threshold of the open door. Falling, falling, falling in an infinite abyss of white light, a sharp pain, evil and thundering shot through her back and she found her body impaled on a spear-like rock. The pain she felt was excruciating.

Snakes, red-eyed and scaled black like the devil, slithered up the pyramid shaped rock to crisscross all over her body. She screamed up to the highest heavens and prayed for deliverance. The shadows of the surrounding area where the light did not destroy snaked and gathered to each other to form the body and handsome, unchanging face of Janus.

"Do you really think that hypocrite you call God will saved you, a tarnished soul of my creation?" he mocked. She tried to cover her ears to block out his terrible lies but every movement was an excruciating strain and a kick to her nervous system.

"That God you pray to will not forgive those who carry the mark of the beast! My coat-of-arms! There is not a prayer of salvation for your dying soul."

The shadow of Janus split into many figures. The accusing glares of Tsukaima … Raion … Ruka and Hotaru … Natsume … Koko … her friends and teachers … Jii-chan … Azuma Yuka-san … all of them pointing and chanting a mantra. "Die, demon! Go away and take your curse!"

They all stopped, turned and walked away. Away from her, leaving her to rot and be infested by snakes, dangling off a rock's point.

She screamed into the night.

--.--.--.

Mikan began thrashing in her sleep, screaming out infidelities. "Don't leave me!" she screamed. "No! Don't let me die! I don't want to die alone! Don't leave me!" It took the combined strength and effort to keep her restrained. She thrust both of us away and tore the straps that held her still to pieces.

"Mikan!" I cried to her, willing her unconscious self to hear. "Don't let the nightmares consume you!" Her eyes bust open, glazed over with the horrific nightmares the poison had concocted.

She looked fearful and her eyes scanned for the shadows that'd made her cry out in revulsion. She relaxed a little but a brilliant light of terror still hung in those eyes.

"I saw…snakes!" she choked out in a sob. "They….they…they were everywhere! Moving under my skin and over it…everyone was leaving me…God abandoned me…the lights…" Hysterical whispers and words fell from her mouth, borne of the hallucinations she's bore witness to.

"Shhh," Natsume comforted, surprisingly tender and calming. "No one's going to leave you, youjo, no one is. Go back to sleep and dream good." She still had that wary light in her eyes but she nevertheless closed them and fell into a hopefully dreamless sleep. The poison oftentimes drove the victim to insanity with nightmares first if distributed in heavy doses. Then, when vulnerable, kill him.

"Raion? When can we get a nurse in here? I want her on sedatives whenever she needs to rest. Knowing this baka, she'll probably destroy every single piece of equipment in this room when left alone. Always was afraid of nightmares."

No matter how scathing the words sounded, he said them with a loving, almost amused tone of voice. I couldn't think of it as anything but love in his eyes, no matter how frightening the colour. He brushed away the shorn sweat-damp auburn strands that obscured her pretty face.

It was far too sharp and had too many angles for it to be beautiful. The long locks that made her face seem sweet and innocent, had been sheared off. The rosy cheeks and joyful face was now replaced with a solemn disposition and gaunt, hollow cheeks; a testament to her burden. But she was undoubtedly pretty. Never meant to be beautiful but wonderfully unique.

Clearly, she loved him too.

It was always clear in those hazel-green eyes that she said what couldn't be spoken out loud. But they were both people that had to be told, assured, untrusting as they were of what they could see but not hear. They were the biggest contradicting idiots I could've ever had the good fortune of meeting.

For a pair of supposed geniuses, they were as dumb as ostriches. And that was saying a lot, considering the size of it brain.

Well…

They always did say love never did know boundaries.

--,--,--,--,

Drifting…in and out of consciousness…

The numbing affect of the sedatives was addictive. I saw bright violet eyes that seemed all so familiar to me. Then, it occurred to me that I'd never seen an evil look to compare to the ones I saw then. That face was so handsome, the devil's own looks. Golden haired and maliciously twisting a smile. "Hello, Hage."

I tried to scream but the bile clogged up my throat and all I got was a squeak. "Shhh, we mustn't wake up the one over there," he chided, grabbing my throat. I saw Natsume lying on the sofa nearby, sleeping in peace. "Listen. I will not kill you while you are an invalid. Do not worry…but I warn you. You would do well to not get too comfortable with your friends. If you are in constant target position, they will be too. So…I suggest you do not get too close."

He vanished just as he appeared.

I felt fear for my friends.

And the guilt that Janus was right.

--,--,--,

Dalta and Kaitou sped through the night. The moving forms of other Janus operatives followed them into the dank alleys of Tokyo. They carried two seal-marked scrolls the other dark one had given them. Fear rushed through them. They had been found out and marked as traitors to the cause. They interpreted it as crusaders of the good.

Miura had disappeared for the time being into the shadows. He was with the other dark one, searching for some parable they didn't get an explanation about. He, the dark one's brother, had said it dated back more than a thousand five hundred years back. It contained information only one person knew. The Guardian of the North Mark.

The Academy walls loomed high over and practically proclaimed salvation. Kaitou boosted Dalta inside and later, jumped over himself. In no less than a few minutes, they were apprehended and dragged into the Academy's holding cells. A moment later, they were reunited with Raion, his face practically the epitome of solemn happiness.

"They've found us out," Dalta said. "Janus and his operatives have been on a Spanish Inquiry and you, me, Kaitou, Miura and two others have been identified."

"What are those?" he asked gesturing to the scrolls Kaitou held.

"We don't know," Kaitou said. "Persona told us that they'd open themselves when the time was right."

--,--,--,

Have you ever heard of the twist in the story? The thing that changes the whole build-up of the plot. It's a time when the characters fall into a turmoil of change, the time when nothing is clear and the line between the factions are blurred beyond recognition. In this time of the wars, the possibility of am imminent death threatened to be the twist that'd never been expected.

I, Hotaru Imai watched as every unfolded in a sense of crazy speed. The truth that was not in our grasps has quickly become the lies that created our lives. Sakura Mikan's life quickly spiralling out of control. In the fractures of her daily life, we saw what we missed. Or rather, chose to not see.

In this twist's cruel intentions, the world as we knew it would change drastically and would never go back to what we called normality. The knowledge that the younger generation would have the chance to change the system of grab-and-change, that kept us going on; the barrier that kept us from giving up hope.

We had to struggle for that future.

Yet, the twist remains a secret still. The true form of it is not known to us because we are not striving for it. We are striving to survive. That alone is the hardest thing to accomplish. If we do not survive, we cannot change anything.

And survival is looking to be impossible.

In our physical world…

…and in our minds.

A/N:The ingenius fanfiction team have this system...its called reviewing...so get with it!!