Chapter 11: Keeping the Fire Within
Meanwhile, Narumi and Tobita lead by Sumire in her cat-dog transformation, were following the tracks that led to the Mafia headquarters.
It was a long way and they would have to pass through the thick forest which enshrouded the infamous gangster realm within.
The forest was dark and brooding at night and only the dim illumination of the moon told them where to set their footing next.
"Oh... Is this going any farther than it already is?" Yuu complained when his hair tangled up with the branches. "Sumire, what are you doing?"
The cat-dog transformation girl seemed to have seized up to an abrupt halt and was sniffing the air speculatively, almost puzzled. It looked like she can't catch some smell.
"What is it, Sumire?" her sensei asked out worriedly.
"Something---" she muttered, sniffing out distractedly, as if afraid to lose some kind of scent, "It's---Shoot!" she cried, stomping on the ground in annoyance.
"Sumire, what's the scent?"
The cat-dog transformation alice wielder gave them a defeated look and sighed, "Natsume's scent... It keeps disappearing and popping out in the air..!" she wailed miserably and slumped on a tree, "Some nut here made a confetti of this area with anti-cat/dog powder smell!"
The fact sinked into the two males quite sluggishly. Yuu inclined his head, puzzled.
"It's probably for the K9 dogs..." Narumi said ponderingly after a while.
"What?"
"...Or perhaps the police dogs who track the place." Narumi explained, "In case a chase ensues, it won't lead to their place, for that matter."
"Oh right... That makes sense."
Silence.
"Oh... How are we going to find it now??" Sumire pawed the air in annoyance, "This forest is, like---the biggest in this city!"
"It won't be long before the academy even discovers we've gone..." Yuu added.
"Sensei?"
"I only charmed the guard at the gate... Perhaps tomorrow, the spell would be gone..." Narumi said, which only aggravated the situation.
"And then, it will be for nothing." Yuu was thoroughly in the dumps now.
silence.
"But we don't have a tomorrow!" Sumire angrily snapped, "We must go now! Natsume's life is at stake, don't you know that??"
Silence. Too slumped in depression...
"Oh, give me a break! Snap out of it!" Sumire wailed exasperated, "If you two are just going to sit around like ducks, I'm moving!"
"But what are you going to do?"Yuu asked her, somewhat gaining leverage and a spark of interest.
"Well, look for some kind of way except using my alice..." Sumire replied matter-of-factly, "Rather than just mop around, I might as well do something..." she said, skulking away into the night to look for something she didn't know what.
silence...
Narumi was thinking about what she said rather deeply, as he considered it.
"Yes, every moment counts. What am I doing?" Narumi reprimanded himself when a sudden thought came to him.
"I've got it!"
"What is it sensei?"
"If I recall it correctly, there's a path in this woods which leads to the main road. It's supposed to guide lost travelers along the exit..." he trailed off, pondering.
"But what's that got to do with anything about finding that gangster headquarters??" the cat-dog transformation alice said.
Narumi faced her, "For one thing, we are left with no other choice." he told her matter-of-factly, "The path is our only lead through the gloom in this forest. Seeing as we are just lying idly here, might as well move it. Don't you agree?"
"Y-yeah... I suppose you're right." Yuu said after considering it for a while.
And so, they move along with their sensei guiding them. A moment later they could make out a dirty, worn-out road beyond them... It looked like it hasn't been used for a very long time.
Upon seeing the road, Narumi exclaimed in agitation. "To the path. We must hurry..!"
Truly, they have lost precious time. And with every moment lost is equal to the danger of Natsume's life...possibly Mikan's too.
But to their dismay, there was a road block ahead which stretched along the length of the forest so there was no way to get around it.
"No..." it was cry of submission to their doom.
"Natsume..." Sumire started to sag into tones of misery.
But their teacher was undaunted by the obstacle that lay before them. "We must find those two...immediately!"
"Why sensei?" Sumire had to ask. It was all starting to turn out to be one, long-winded parade to her.
"Or it might be too late...for Natsume, Mikan or the both of them."
Gasps.
"Natsume's alice of fire is controlled by his earrings," their sensei said grimly, "and when he goes to missions, by his mask. The mask most especially serves as a floodgate that controls the flow of his alice. He always wears his mask when he goes to missions to deal with enemies... But without it, there is no assurance as to how long his life could take the strain---"
"No! Narumi-sensei, don't say that!" Sumire near tears.
Narumi seemed to gather some of his strength to hold on. Matter-of-factly, he continued "Then we must find a way... Or the consequences may be worst than it already is."
From the shade of the tree branches, protected from the shadows of the night stood Persona... And at their discussion, he hurried away without awaiting their next moves. The same urgency was in his strides as he made his way to the headquarters...
- o -
At the mafia headquarters...
The fire ignited at the middle division of the headquarters rung out its SOS signal throughout.
Smoke wafting out from the explosion on the building mingled with the gunshots and other sounds of the battlefield and implied all the warnings it needed broadcast.
And this time, it made sure everyone knows what's going on.
Especially the Boss.
"What's going on out there??" the Boss cried out from his bed. The explosion incident thoroughly washed away the ecstatic moment, and he was determined to find out who's making the racket and give him a good beating.
"It's the Black Cat, Boss!! And some of those academy freaks!" the informer was scared and panicky.
The whores and other people in the room began to scatter and depart, like who would those who smelled trouble brewing.
"The Black Cat??" his throaty voice incredulous. Of all the enemies, it had to be him... That boy could get overbearingly tenacious sometimes, dedicated to fulfilling his mission. At this rate---
"Hold him off! I'll inform the others on the mid-section for backup!"
"But Boss..!" the informer whined, "The middle division is---"
"Argh.. You blundering fool! I'll go there myself!" impatient and eager to rid of the problem, the boss got himself off and rushed to the exit, never hearing his informer's explanation.
"But the middle division is in tatters..." his voice trailed off but he shrugged resignedly, not bothering to chase after his boss.
"No use delaying the inevitable, eh? It is his kingdom afterall. Let him go down with it." the informer thought and laughed aloud, packed his belongings and prepared for getaway. He was pledging to renew his ways anyway.
All around, the flames began to spread, catching the tails of buildings and setting it on fire. Up above the misty moon lost its radiance as the first batch of dark clouds blanketed the sky with its eerie glow...
- o -
The Boss scampered amidst the deserted grounds of the middle-section, dread flooding him in waves.
No one was around.
Tsubasa and the team decided to hide the unconscious bodies someplace, and then alert the authorities later on. The Boss saw his deserted grounds, deprived of life and any signs of activity and began to cry in abject misery at their doing.
"M-m-my...M-my men!!" the ogre cried babyishly.
He was helpless now without his cronies to protect him. But suddenly, he was possessed with a different kind of fervor, a burning drive that spew away all the predicaments of the moment.
"The Black cat..!" it was a growl coming from him. The Boss erected himself from the ground and rushed to the transmission room...
When he reached the place, his eyes scoured the wires of telephones and communication gadgets in a tangled heap and finally found what he was looking for--
He grab the cellular phone that would instantly connect his call to the mafia's of the other city and then----
thump.
The Boss looked in bewilderment as the phone he held lifted high into the air as if by some imaginary trick. Somewhere around the room a light flicked on...
"You...!" The leader of the mafia exclaimed, puzzled and angry at the same time as he finally got all the answers he needed.
And Tsubasa smirked back at him, "Yes, us."
And the last thing the Boss knew was seeing Anna's black, murderous-looking pie of one week nightmare slumber.
- o -
The derelict recycling building didn't look so abandoned anymore, as the flames licked its walls and caressed its metal shingles like a passionate lover, unwilling to cease its tirade once started. The fires ate what was left of the roof and the sounds of falling debris from inside resounded.
"Mikan---!"
Natsume threw himself against the roaring flames that harmed even a fire alice wielder like himself, but he didn't care about that. He didn't care about the burns and injuries he would later attend to as one thing burned in his mind like everywhere around him.
"Mikan...!"
His calls were unanswered amidst the inferno, and he begun to feel sick with dreaded premonition.
The fire alice wielder was recalling his childhood memories at the last minute... It was because of him that he lost the people he loved-----
No, he can't let this happen...
Not again.
"Not Mikan...!" he thought feverishly, and with wild determination, he lounged himself into the final line of flames in front of him inside the premises of the building, and landed with a heavy thud on the floor.
"Argh..." he cried out in pain and started to cough at the smoke. He regained his balance and darted his eyes frantically around when his sight caught a pale flesh sticking out of a fallen debris...
Panic leaped into his heart like never before as possibilities crossed his mind:
Dead, breathing or fatal?
One way to find out...
"Mikan!" Natsume jumped to her place, ignoring the stinging agony on his shoulder and the heat all around him. It all felt like being cooked alive in an oven. The raven-haired boy lifted the debris on top of her body and flung it off the side even though it looked like it weigh about twice his size.
The flames were growing in intensity now... And it was coming near.
"Mikan! Mikan!" somehow, he shrugged her awake before attending to the roaring flames all around him, fighting off the hysteria bubbling into his consciousness.
And that was when a huge piece of metal fell down from the ceiling towards their place.
- o -
Narumi, Sumire and Yuu saw the smoke from afar, and quickened their pace, all the while Narumi praying it wouldn't be too late. Now that the beacon was lit, it would be easy to locate the place...
But the question was, if they would make it on time.
"It musn't happen! It can't happen again..!"
From afar, the audible sound of a thunder crackled with deafening loudness.
- o -
The mafia lying around the castle stirred and panicked upon seeing the recycling building and several other buildings on fire. The fires caught most of the outside border, and the pack of hoodlums, with their Boss gone and no one to give them orders, began to scatter us well, fleeing to safety.
Some may have gone but majority of the mafia stood their ground, unfazed by the armageddon happening all around them...
They knew the perpetrator was still inside their territory. And their instincts would not allow it with every bit of their dying breath.
The raging flames were surged by the upcoming tempest, but they could make out a figure emerging through the hollow, pitted depths of inferno where the explosion came from---
It was a figure, carrying a body of a girl in his arms... walking in slow motion... Or had they imagined it with all those dancing flames in the background?
But no, this was different...
It almost looks as if the fires were goading the figure coming toward them, helping him for the task that lay ahead. The fires everywhere and around molded with the figure, and they appeared as one to the hoodlum's eyes from afar.
And they instantly knew the Black Cat.
...except that his earrings are gone,
and his shirt lay in tangled rags at his sides, exposing his bare, chiseled chest----
and he had a look in his eyes that made them want to scream bloody murder.
But the gangsters had embodied the mafia code in their genes... They also had tough guts to hang onto.
They braced themselves against their foe, just as fierce as the fire alice wielder.
Natsume saw this with understanding and gently placed Mikan on the ground beside him and scanned the enemies---
It was not a throng, it was a battalion.
The alice he used a while back at the falling piece of metal was quiet a lot...
If he had not removed his earrings on time, his alice would not have been enough to pushed the huge metal's weight out of the glass window of the building where it was hurled outside, producing a gaping hole that lead to the grounds. The fire then was already closing in, and having no other foreseeable escape, Natsume carried Mikan and escaped through the hole.
He glanced at the mafia closing in on them...
He has to decide quickly.
The amount of alice he used was enough to make him feel utterly weak and drained, but he couldn't afford Mikan to get hurt... Not in a million years. The stupid idiot may be as annoying as hell, but for some reason, no matter what his mind told him, he couldn't just leave the hapless little girl alone...
For whatever it was worth----
No,
she was worth everything... Even his dark, shrouded life.
"And polka-dots doesn't know... That's a shame." the thought brought a faint smirk on his lips one last time, in a moment that would be the final bout of everything.
To protect the people he loves... And this girl was his number one.
The thought blazed at him and that finally decided it.
This was it.
Make or break.
Natsume stepped forward in a moment that was eternal, when raging flames from his body emerged, encircling him and grew in magnitude until it was big and fiery enough. It engulfed the enemies in a sudden, sweeping motion...
For an instant, a sudden hush enveloped the surroundings as the inferno blazed and ravaged living and non-living in its path, disintegrating everything its field encompassed that nothing was left except the hot ashes in its wake.
Everything was silent thereafter...
There were no signs of activity to be seen.
And then, it began to rain.
The heavy pouring rain appeased the fresh raging fires and washed away the remnants of the battle.
along with the chastising rain, through the soiled earth dissipated Mikan's drugged effect, purifying and revitalizing her body to consciousness, as she opened her eyes to the coldness that awakened her...
Skits, in a vain attempt to be funny:
Mikan: (wondering) HEY! VC is gone... I wonder what happened?
Ruka: (sees) Down in the dumps again...
Hotaru: (munching on cupcakes) She's brooding on how she has violated Gakuen Alice's story.
Natsume: And I thought the fickle-head doesn't own us?
VC: (wailing somewhere in a corner) I'll never see the light of fanfiction again...! (continues to wail)
Natsume: (shrugs indifferently) The idiot gets disappointed at a sudden drop of temperature.
Ruka: (alarmed) Hold it or she'll probably quit writing!
Mikan: (sounds siren) All hands on deck! XD Yosh! (raises her sleeves) All right, no crying!
Hotaru: (bluntly) This is a 'fan's fiction', right...
Ruka: Yeah. You're just doing your job.
VC: (looks at them teary-eyed) Really?
Everyone: Yeah!
(and everyone's thinking---)
Mikan: She'd better not quit. Those Howalons---
Ruka: Or I'm not going to get a new role... or even Mikan.
Natsume: How many times do I have to die? Or translate fickle-head's beguiling handwriting?
Hotaru: (eating cakes without a care) She won't dare quit.. (pats her baka-gun)
(5 seconds later)
VC: (wipes away fake tears) okay! I'll continue!! XD
Everyone: (heaves sigh of relief) Good!
VC: ehehe... I was just faking it---(gets headshot by baka-gun) OW!
VC: (rubs head) sheeeesh... alright..! XD I'll do the announcement.
Everyone: You'd better!
VC: okay! give me 3 days delay! XD ...I guess...
Everyone: (mutters) fickle-head...
