Chapter 20

Sorry, but I'll fast forward about 10 minutes… Ruka and Hotaru's group is at the 4th to last obstacle, Natsume and Mikan are at the second to last, Youichi and Ki are out, and Yuu and Koko are out as well.

WITH RUKA AND HOTARU…

"To get past here, you have to run through my rain without getting wet!" said a boy with the rain alice.

Hotaru merely put up a shield of compressed energy and were supposed to simply walked right through it. However, the boy could control the droplets, so he got Ruka soaked… and that was it.

However, in the process, he was knocked over onto the pressure, and landed on… Hotaru…

What's worse, his lips were on her mouth… and I'll leave it at that!

WITH NATSUME AND MIKAN…

"I wonder if they're still in or not," said Mikan nervously. The genies had a strange habit of sneaking up on them… so she got scared.

"Hn, oh, the last one," replied Natsume, they had just passed the second to last challenge as Ruka and Hotaru got out.

"Hi! Wow you guys are fast!" said Tsubasa sitting on a suspended carpet, "Ok. Right now, you can't move because of my bind," the two realized that he was right when they tried to move, "What you have to do is get me down without the use of your alices, or in Mikan's case, her powers."

However, Natsume being Natsume, thought up a loophole and solution. What he did was put his flames to where their shadows were. No one said that they couldn't use their alices to get out of the binds. Then, Natsume lifted up Mikan and she pushed Tsubasa off, who landed without difficulty.

"Congratulations! You found the loophole!" he said while clapping, "You're also the first ones to get the special prize!"

"YAY!" Mikan said while rejoicing, at least she was allowed to use her wind to keep her up as she tried to ignore the pain. The sudden lift had caused her chest to hurt a bit.

Natsume noticed though, "Sorry for that," he said so no one else would hear THE Natsume apologize. He then gave Mikan a small kiss on the forehead as if that would wipe away the pain.

"I'm ok," she said back, blushing, "I'm much tougher than that! Now let's go get that prize!"

'I'm really sorry, Mikan,' he thought as they followed Tsubasa.

Once they were outside, they were greeted by everyone. The way they greeted her though… was a thumbs up followed by one finger.

Mikan shuddered, this sign meant for the 5 older kids to get in a tight circle scarcely 2 feet from her while the little ones were barely one inch from her, which they did.

"You guys," she started, only to be interrupted by the emotionless inventor.

"None of that, baka," she stated, obviously not in the mood. She was used to Ruka kissing her, but it had hurt when he landed on her, so she was mad at that rain alice.

"We have to keep mommy safe!" said the excited Ki, obviously enjoying this. Youichi just sweatdropped at his 'sister's' behavior, but shrugged it off.

"So where and what is the prize," asked Yuu. 'What is it… what is it… what is it…' kept running through his mind.

"A lamp," said Koko, "It's a lamp with a picture of all of us, and whichever one Mikan or Natsume picks will be their 'genie' and grant them any 3 wishes."

"EHH!!!" screamed Mikan, "But you guys are already taking care, well, too much care of me!"

"We're only doing it because we want to, pandas," said Natsume.

It took Mikan awhile, "But- HEY!!! YOU PERVERT! WHEN DID YOU SEE?"

"You showed it to me when you knocked over Kage," he said, smirking. 'She'll kill me later, but don't forget that we're hiding 'it',' he thought in his mind.

Mikan just pouted cutely a little, but turned her attention to the sempais who were coming to congratulate her and Tsubasa then presented her and Natsume with all of the lamps. There were 8 of them obviously one for each of them. Natsume then reached and grabbed one immediately as Mikan hesitantly took one herself.

Of course, the other 6 had backed off to give them space, but formed a semi-circle around the pair.

Tentatively, both Mikan and Natsume lifted the lids of the lamps and pulled out the picture of… EACH OTHER!? Mikan stared wide-eyed at Natsume who looked at her nonchalantly.

"So, 3 wishes was it," said our emotionless inventor, "I'll be RICH by the end of this." The others just sweatdropped as they all started to head back to the other grounds where other stands were setting up.

'I wonder what I'll ask for…' thought Mikan and Natsume at the same time. They certainly didn't want to waste them…

When they were halfway down the rode back, a beam of blue light shot up from Mikan's body.

To say that the others were shocked, surprised, caught off guard, helpless, numbed, scared, flabbergasted, wondering, defensive, and worried would be a MAJOR understatement as they watched their friend/lover/mommy hover in the beam of blue.

They didn't know what was happening, until they saw 2 figures emerge from Mikan's body. The 7 were baffled at first, but quickly remembered about the other 2 goddesses sleeping inside of Mikan. Had they woken up? Was Mikan aware of this? Wait, they all thought, suddenly remembering something, where was Nature?

That's right! She had just up and disappeared when Mikan woke up in the hospital! Just as they thought that, though, the light had disappeared as quickly as it came, interuppting thier thoughts. People now making their way over to see what happened.

"MMMMMIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!" screamed none other than Athena, hugging, or rather, strangling Mikan with her deadly 'hug-of-death'!

"Athena… can't breath!" she managed. Athena quickly let go, saying she was sorry as Nyx took a look at the two emotionlessly as usual.

"Nyx, Athena! I'm glad you woke up!" said Mikan.

"YEAH!" exclaimed Athena, "Sorry we took so long though… anyways! OI! WHERE'S OUR NEW LITTLE MASTER, EH?!"

Unfortunatly, everyone except for those who arrived, quite baffled by the way, knew EXACTLY what she was talking about.

"Oi, Athena, what part of 'secret' do you not understand," demanded Hotaru, she does NOT ask questions.

She quickly slammed her hand over her mouth.

"Anyways, how did you know what was happening if you were sleeping," asked a curious Ruka.

"We can see what happens to her as if we were watching T.V." stated Nyx, walking to Mikan and whispering something in her ear. She looked shocked at first, but nodded. Before anyone could ask, though, she told them that they should all go to her room with her.

Once they were in there, Natsume demanded an answer to what happened. It was obviously not very good, considering she didn't talk the whole way back.

"It's something that they noticed while we were in history," she said, looking like she was going to be sick, "I obviously missed it, but they didn't."

"This must be bad," said Koko, "I can't read her mind." He now had on his rare serious expression as they all sat in a circle. Youichi and Ki exchanged worried glances as their mommy continued.

"They saw in the text books… that Ares… Athena's older brother… his remains were found," she said.

"So? Isn't that OK?" asked Youichi, "After all, he was in a human body."

"No, he wasn't," she said, looking down, "He felt that to convince people of my father's, and theirs, Zeus', existence that he must go as his true self, wings hidden of course, so when the Romans brutally killed him in a war, he was supposed to go POOF!"

'What?' ran through everyone's mind.

"Maybe he actually had a body, isn't that possible," asked Natsume, clearly worried about his girlfriend's reaction to all of this.

"But he never came back to heaven, and he didn't go to hell, or even into a new body on earth… nothing!" said Athena, trying to fight the tears while searching her memory for anything useful.

"Maybe it wasn't his remains," stated Hotaru.

"It was," said Nyx, "Before coming out, we projected ourselves to the remains to check, and it was him."

Ok, this was weird! But that's when Ki remembered something, it hit her like a ton of bricks, "AHH! I REMEMBER NOW!"

"Huh?" they all asked, except the 4 you-know-who's.

"Well, I was in my spirit form one day about 2000 years ago when the Romans were attacking Ares-nii, and he muttered something! It was in a language I don't know! All of the sudden though, I remember a beam of light shooting up, and from there, everything was black," she explained, "But I saw Athena-nee there!"

Everyone then looked towards the silent goddess, she had been eerily quiet since the mention of her brother. She now had tears falling down her pale face, she had remembered the same thing, and it was not very happy.

"I think I know what happened," she said as she started to explain to the dead-silent group.

FLASHBACK:

It was a dark night way back during the war. Romans were everywhere as Ares had grabbed his weapons with his mortal friends and rushed out to attack the intruders.

Athena was watching from the sky, invisibly of course, keeping an eye on her brother as he slashed through the crowd. She knew that he was having fun, it was his nature to enjoy such things.

She shuddered as she saw him smirk at every fallen Roman, even though they probably deserved it. Just then though, his friends were attacked and killed, wiping the smirk clean off his face as he turned to find the culprits.

This was a mistake.

His anger clouded his judgment as he charged to attack a whole fleet of Romans who had, as it seemed, appeared out of thin air. What waited for him, though, was thousands of razor-sharp blades, all aiming at him.

Before he was hit though, he chanted a seal that makes his 'soul' be placed within another… and he placed himself within Athena.

END FLASHBACK: (A/N: cuz I'm lazy, you can guess what happened from there though… right?!)

Mikan comforted Athena as she started to cry, "I just remembered… he's in me."

"How do we get him out?" asked Koko, "Don't look at me like that! Mikan activated her nullification, so I can't read!"

"He's (sob) still sleeping (sob)," Athena said sadly, "He'll wake up (sob) soon though. I'm so (sob) glad!"

Mikan then looked down, deep in thought. Natsume looked puzzled by this.

"Oi, pandas, what's with 'the look'," he demanded. He half expected to be yelled at for being a perv. but it never came.

"Athena, maybe you should go back to heaven with Nyx."

MAN! Wow I'm nice! I just gave back Athena and Nyx and now they're going away... oh well! It's not my choice on how I dream. Cuz that's what this is, ya know! My dream!

Anyways, sorry for the late one! I'm busy on my other story Mitsuru too! Check it out if you want, it's about Mikan turning into a boy! But no spoilers! Anyways, please Review! It keeps me goin.