DISCLAIMER: I do not own Gakuen Alice or any of its characters!!!!!
Hmm. The confusion is starting to be a bit of an issue. Maybe I should dedicate chapters solely to the thoughts and actions of its designated POV person. I'm going to use "Oo" to signify small moments of action and thought that are from other characters besides the ones whose POV we are looking through. And to lessen the confusion for this chapter, I'm letting you know ahead of time that THIS IS DEDICATED TO MIKAN'S POV. And the rest will be told in third person. And, along the way, I might have a couple flashbacks. Oh, and by the way, the new hip way of putting breaks in events is:
Oo
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Far From Home
Where did Hotaru go? Why wasn't she here? Could she be-?
I suddenly felt another conscience enter my mind.
Shut up little brat, she's gone, they probably killed her.
It was that voice again, the same voice that had been saying such soothing things in my head before taking control of my body. And then I couldn't remember anything after that…except-
Stay still! I can't concentrate with you struggling so much.
But I wasn't moving…at least not physically from however much I could tell.
Just stop thinking already. It's tiring me out. If you get your control back, the shock of reality can be enough to kill you. And that won't be so good for me, will it?
I wished that this annoying voice would just stop cutting off my train of thoughts. I was so close to remembering exactly how I'd…killed…how I'd killed a man with my bare hands…
Oh my god. I was going to kill someone. I killed someone. I had killed someone…was I going to die too? Hotaru…
The other conscience was gone.
Oo
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"A mighty fine specimen, a very fine specimen," He said this while looking at the girl besides him and took a sip out of a water bottle, which he had brandished from his black cloak. The things he kept in that thing were about as mysterious as his name.
Persona.
He looked at the similarly cloaked figure sitting across from him. She seemed to be fidgeting slightly in discomfort.
"Again. I ask for forgiveness. We did not expect-"
"And again, let me tell you, as long as we have what we want. And we do. I trust Mark is taking care of the other one?"
The woman nodded.
Silence reigned in the car once more.
The woman broke it by pointing out, "She's panicking."
Persona looked over at the girl. She was indeed beginning to shake, her hands coming up to grip her arms, as if she might lose herself lest she let go. "Oh I'm sure she'll be fine. It's just a little aftershock."
"Sir. I think we should restrain her just in case."
"I think I might just get rid of that annoying little voice that keeps telling me what to do," A smile graced his lips, although whether it was in jest or in all seriousness, his mask kept the woman from knowing. Of course that was what it was for in the first place.
"Yuka."
Yuka almost flinched at the use of her name. Hadn't she always been careful not to draw attention to that specific piece of information? "Yes, master?"
"I'm surprised that you actually show interest in this girl. You usually don't care whether a specimen lives or dies...you cannot hide your eyes from me."
Yuka fought to keep from flinching and looking away, for that would merely add to the obviousness of her rattled nerves. "…She is a special case. It's not that often that we are given a task this intriguing."
"True…true." Even though the mask helped hide the upper part of his face, it wasn't hard to tell that he was watching her, waiting for some wrong reaction.
And Yuka knew that it wouldn't be long before something did go wrong.
Oo
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It hurts, it hurts, why won't the pain stop? Nothing had ever hurt this much before. The truth hurt.
The voice hadn't said a word since reality had roughly shoved me back. It didn't seem like it was going to come back anyways. I wanted it to stay that way. It only made me miss everyone more, Hotaru, Ruka-pyon, jii-san, Agano-sempai…even that mean shachou. Why couldn't I go back to them? I wanted to go back to them. I really did…
"No! Let me out of here!" I lashed out with a fist. I didn't care who I hit, just as long as it made contact with something hard enough to give me some savage satisfaction. Since when had I been so wild?
"You little-!"
My fist was stopped in mid punch. And another was returned, several times the force.
Bam!
The sound of my head cracking against something harder than glass wasn't very reassuring. But it took away the pain torturing me from the inside for a while. However, the absence of that pain was followed by the agony resounding from the impact of my head on what seemed like bulletproof glass. "Ow…"
"Control yourself, Yuka-san. It's important that the child is not damaged. That wouldn't be good for the researchers now would it?" The man was using a manner of tone that suggested he was enjoying all of this immensely. I looked up to try and make an attempt at collecting my thoughts and assessing just who exactly made up my current company. And saw a pair of hazel eyes that unexpectedly reminded me of my own. But before I could say anything, let alone gape for a couple seconds, the hazel in those eyes suddenly began to swirl and slowly, a different color began to bleed into it.
A bloody red.
I found that I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. They began to close unbidden to me and I was powerless to stop them. However, it was a secret relief to me to not have to look at those eyes anymore for the time being. There was just too much sadness in them.
Oo
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What was wrong with me today? I've heard of flashbacks, but this is getting plain ridiculous. That is…if these were really my actual was no use trying to deny the truth anymore. There was no way these "recollections" could possibly exist without me having experienced them first.
However, in this particular memory, the air wasn't cold and frigid anymore like my previous ones were.
My clothes were different again. I looked down to see myself dressed lightly in a small dirt brown dress that looked worse for wear and I was barefoot. The ground radiated the heat it had collected from the sun's rays. I assumed it was noontime.
"Mikan! Come back inside, it is not good for little girls to run around in the sun and play in the dirt like a boy."
I turned to see an elderly grandma, who reminded me of baasan, who I always used to see in jiisan's pictures. Her voice was one of scolding, but her eyes spoke differently. They shined with the same compassion and kindness that were in jiisan's and, suddenly, my heart ached so terribly.
"Mikan…?" she repeated, sounding a bit taken aback. Did she already suspect that the Mikan she knew wasn't the same as the one standing before her? "Mikan, little one, why are you crying?"
My eyes had gotten hot after I'd felt the aching feeling inside me and soon I was trying to blink away tears. Why was I crying? But the aching feeling wouldn't go away and, soon, I felt so melancholy. But then a word sprang unbidden to my tongue, "Gran mama...!" My feet moved by themselves and brought me running as fast as I could to the kind, old woman, and buried my face in the apron she had tied to her front. The tears were pouring by now, but, this time, they came from my own will. All I wanted to do was bawl my eyes out and be comforted by this grandma, who reminded me so much of jiisan back at home, a place that seemed so far away.
"Oh little one. Did one of village boys bully you? They never know how to properly treat a girl." She had her hand on my head and was gently smoothing it back as she consoled me with endearments.
I shook my head to answer her question. Then I finally looked up after a few more minutes of sobbing, eyes red and tear-stained, and managed to choke out, "I…May I eat later, Gran mama? I don't feel hungry right now. Can I go visit, Ruka?" I wasn't sure why I'd mentioned Ruka when he probably didn't even exist yet, but my mouth continued to move accordingly by itself.
"Why, of course! First drink some water. It's very hot outside and I don't want you getting too thirsty. It's good for girls to drink plenty of water in order to stay healthy." The grandma seemed happy to spoil her granddaughter. That was about all I had managed to deduce from this memory. This elderly lady was someone who had taken care of me, loved me, and wanted me to live the best life possible. But, the problem was, this life wasn't the life I lived now. This was the life that only someone a couple hundred years ago should've lived. This was something that probably happened before I was born.
Oo
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"She'll stay sleeping until we can properly contain her." Yuka continued to watch the unconscious girl, her face apparently screwed up as if crying. Mikan…
"Yes, yes, that's good enough, although I would've so enjoyed it if she'd been awake just a little longer. I would've shown her something fun."
This man…Yuka didn't want to think about it any longer. No one within their organization knew his true abilities. It was so the unknown factor would keep anyone from turning against him, inducing fear from the possible incredibly inhumane consequence that might be inflicted upon those caught. Yuka kept her eyes locked firmly on the sleeping form of the girl, for she could feel the masked eyes of the one who had graced her thoughts not but mere moments ago. It took years of practice to train to keep her body in a relaxed state and her voice calm and unwavering.
"Yuka."
"Yes?"
"Try not to think too much."
"…Yes, sir." She was off the hook, for now.
Oo
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Has it been hours? The possibility of that was unnerving. Unlike most dreams, this one actually had the sense of time, where it practically felt like you'd entered it bodily and it had become a reality. I could even feel the sun-beaten grass between my toes, which was what I'd been feeling for what seemed like the past three hours. I didn't think it was even possible to find Ruka in this dream, in this timeline to be exact. My newly discovered grandmother, whom I never knew had existed, had let me out to play and do what little kids often did. And I'd been dumb enough to go running off in some random direction with no idea as to where a possibly non-existent person may be.
And that was when I felt my feet guiding me down a pathway I hadn't noticed in my misdirected stupor. The road was rocky and anything but a well-traveled route. The trees were overgrown here and shadows lingered in places where it shouldn't have. It wasn't very surprising when I came upon a small hut, about as shady and overgrown with vines as its environment. My heart missed a couple beats. Here went nothing.
"Hey! Ruka are you there?...Anyone?" I listened hard from my vantage point of the small hut. "Well, I guess no one's home. Maybe I'll head back-"
"And where do you think you're going?"
That couldn't have been…no…I turned slowly until I came face to face with someone who I never thought I'd see again.
"I said, where do you think you're going besides with me, pigtails?" A small punch was all it would've taken to wipe the smirk off his face, but I held the small thought of violence back. My relief and joy was too strong to be ignored.
"Sha…Natsume!" Throwing my hands open in abandon, I fell right into him, wrapping my arms around his small frame, slightly broader than my own. It was enough to see at least someone I somewhat knew. "Natsume!"
"Shut up, I already heard you the first time. Geez…" He sounded so angry, but he couldn't have been since I felt his own arms tighten around me. "What's got you so worked up?"
I really couldn't think in those few moments. I didn't ask any questions as to why he was here, why he talked to me with such familiarity, and, most curious of all, what was he to me? None of that occurred even once in my company-starved brain. It was just me, Natsume, and the friendly hug we shared.
Then I began thinking again.
"Aah!" The push I sent his way somehow backfired and I went flying instead, landing butt first into a convenient pile of leaves.
"What's your problem?" he hissed, his face flushed, probably from my sudden outburst.
"I-I'm sorry! I don't know what came over me!" That was an outright lie. I had asked too many questions and panicked. That was the easiest answer. It was then that he held out a hand to help me up. I stared at it for a couple seconds, scrutinizing it as if observing to see if it had the ability of biting.
"When someone offers their hand to you, you grab it." I looked sharply up at him, at his tone of voice. Then, grudgingly, I took his hand and was pulled up about as easily as a rag doll.
"…thanks." I muttered almost inaudibly. I took this time to sneak a peek at the younger version of my shachou's face. It actually was rather amusing to see him with his cheeks a bit more rounded and…like a child. But his eyes were the same, they looked tired, tired and opened to too much of the world.
"What are you looking at?" he snapped.
Geez, what a stooge, I couldn't help but think that instinctively and a small giggle escaped my lips before I could stifle the rising laughter.
"What is with you these days, no wait, these past ten minutes?" he didn't look that displeased.
"Sorry. I'm just out of it today. Where's Ruka? I wanted to go play with him?" Again, the words were just tumbling out of my mouth once more. "Did you see him anywhere?"
An irritated look replaced the not-so-displeased one. "Well that's funny. The last time I checked, his house was about a quarter of a mile that way." He pointed in the exact opposite direction.
I wasn't sure exactly what to say, just stared a bit at that hand pointing in the direction of Ruka's house. A new revelation had just crossed my mind. He was older than he looked. The hug that we had shared earlier had flashed back inside my mind and I was reminded once more of how it'd felt with his arms around me. Those arms, they had been warm, and not unfamiliar. They felt like the same arms that had wrapped around me when I'd been drowning in a dream state. Was that how we'd met? Could I be an old lady and just not look the part? There was no way I could've existed so long ago and still look how I did today. Apparently, Natsume, if what was going on wasn't exactly natural, was the same as me. He had a similar thing going on with mine. I was starting to really doubt my humanity, or at least part of it.
"Hey. Will you stop drifting off every time I try talking to you?" His voice brought me back to the strange dream-like reality I was currently in.
"How…how old are you? And…do you know how old I am too?" I really did feel childish then asking this.
"Why?"
"Ummm, cuz I don't think you ever told me and you know how I always forget my birthday!" It was another badly attempted lie, for it was actually pretty true.
"I'm fourteen and you're turning eleven soon. That's all I'm letting you know. You're going to have to remember your own birthday on your own time."
"You're so mean, Natsume-kun!" I almost clapped a hand in shock over my mouth. Had I just called him what I think I did? Was it even possible for something like this to occur in the universes? But for all I knew, things like this probably happened every day in this one.
He definitely noticed my surprise because he gave me a look to match mine. "That finally seems like something you'd usually say."
"Oh…well then, how did we first meet?" It really had seemed like quite the innocent question when I'd first decided to ask it.
"Sakura…" Was it me or had he completely changed personalities there? His usual demeanor was suddenly replaced by a distant look and his eyes appeared to be slightly clouded over as if reminiscing. Was our first meeting really that emotional?
"Natsu-mph!" It was official. My brain had turned into total jelly and I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. This was bending reality, it couldn't have been meant to be.
Natsume Hyuuga could not be kissing me this very moment!
Not when we were only kids right now in this time and space! I was only eleven for god sakes!
"Mmph!" I made a futile sound of protest. And that was when I felt something foreign in my mouth.
Oh my kami! That's his TONGUE!
My legs went limp too. Kids back then really didn't do this kind of stuff, did they? These blurred, hazy thoughts skimmed through my jellied brain. It felt so good.
I had closed my eyes a while ago and was merely enjoying the moment. And it was then that I felt as if I were floating, ever so gently, upwards and Natsume's warm embrace was gone, so were his lips. My eyes refused to open.
Oo
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"When did you find her?"
"Last night, as I was coming out of the building."
Who's speaking right now?
"Did you sense them?"
"No. The trail was long dead by the time I got to her."
Them? Who was them?
"Hey, I think she's coming to!"
Why does he sound so familiar?
Hotaru groaned as she brought her hand to the back of her head, only to withdraw it quickly with a short hiss of pain, flecks of drying blood smeared on her hand. She looked around her and saw that it was morning and she was in an office of some sort. Her vision cleared a bit more and she found herself focused on the two occupants of the room. It was Mikan's shachou and another man, probably his assistant, she deduced. She spent several seconds wondering why the hell she was in this situation when the events of last night struck her already fatigued mind like a charging truck. She fell back and was caught by the shachou's assistant, whatever his name was. Her head was throbbing hard. She felt a something warm being pressed to the back of her head.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to do anything until you were conscious."
He had a nice voice she thought as her mind began getting fuzzy, but she didn't say so out loud. Or maybe she did because she thought she saw his face turn red. Her head hurt so much, but she felt like she still needed to do one last thing. She turned her head slightly to see the shachou kneeling down besides her as well. And then she remembered what she wanted to say.
"He wants me to tell you that Akiri sent him."
"What?" his voice sounded like he was genuinely agonized. Or was it? She couldn't really tell right now. Her eyes quivered and then closed, bringing her into the world full of untold stories and fantasies.
A/N: So, what'd you guys think? I sure took a hell of a long time getting that to come out didn't I? You guys must hate me now. Nuuuu! Don't hate me!.........Sorry about that. It's past midnight right now for me and I'm kinda not as awake. Updates will happen again in the future, although whether it be near or not will need to be foreseen.