Hello, everyone.

I know it's been a while (four years in fact) since I last updated.

There were a lot of reasons for that:

1. I went to school and attended college for four years as an undergrad

2. I became obsessed with Magi, Naruto, and Miraculous, in that exact order.

3. I was busy figuring out my future.

There are a lot more reasons but these were the top 3 that stopped me from contributing to the Gakuen Alice fandom the way I used to.

I understand a lot of you probably left during that time and haven't been back since. I can't blame you for doing that, I probably would have done the same.

But now I'm back. And I'm back with a new chapter that is, appropriately, up on Father's Day.

Since it has been a while, I will recap what has happened so far:

Shiki, Narumi, and the HSP started a competition to determine who was the "father" Mikan loved most in her heart. The competition, courtesy of Misaki-sensei, consists of Mikan sating "I love you" to the trio. Whoever hears it first is the winner. However, there are many obstacles to winning the competition, including the three rivals. After all, not everyone agrees with the contest. Now the HSP, Narumi and Shiki have come up with their own plans to win the contest, and they have recruited a lot of allies in order to do so. Which brings us to where we left off last time. May the best winner win!

Enjoy!

And Happy Father's Day to all fathers everywhere!

Incho

Incho was having a rough day.

And that meant a lot of things since Incho has had a lot of rough days.

Ever since the day he was elected class rep of the class (not because of his amazing intelligence, but because of his ability to keep the class together. Curse you, Natsume Hyuga!), he has gone through a lot of ups and downs, from getting his Alice stolen by Mikan-chan's mother (not that they knew that at the time), to staging a maasive, school-wide revolt with all the Alice Academy against their then-corrupt ESP (who was now dead), to having to say goodbye to Mikan-chan (only to be reunited with her a few years later).

In fact, one of the worst and best days of his life stemmed from going to the Northern Woods as a child back when Mikan-chan had first arrived and had been enrolled at the Academy. They had barely made it out with their lives and sanity intact, no thanks to forest fire that injured a lot of animals.

(Again, curse you, Natusme-kun!)

Honestly, it felt like deja-vu when Hotaru-chan sent him to the Northern Woods to stir up trouble.

Of course, Incho had been hesitant to do so, but since it was Hotaru-chan who asked, and it was for Mikan-chan's sake, Incho reluctantly agreed to help.

But still, that didn't mean he didn't have his doubts about the plan. Doubts that were currently being confirmed and realized at the moment.

It was bad enough when Hotaru-chan recruited him to help the MSP win the extremely weird competition (of fatherly love, no less).

(Seriously, these men were grown adults, what on earth were they thinking?!)

It was even worse when he had to witness Hotaru-chan knock out Mikan-chan and leave her in Mr. Bear's capable (of doing extreme damage to anyone else's) hands.

(Poor Mikan-chan—he had to hope no permanent damage was done to her when she wakes. Then again, this is Mikan-chan.)

But this...this was going too far.

Everyone knew the Northern Forest was filled rabbits, birds, and bears. Incho could deal with that.

Nobody told him the Northern Woods was practically infested with bugs of all kinds!

Cockroaches, centipedes, millipedes, beetles, you name it!

Incho could not deal with that!

Did he forget to mention he was deathly afraid of bugs?

Honestly, who wouldn't be? You'd have to grow up as a country girl afraid of ghosts and haunted houses in order to not be afraid of them.

(Elsewhere, tied up in front of Bear, Mikan Sakura ended up sneezing, causing the pile of leaves Bear had been sweeping up to be blown away.)

(You can probably guess what happened next. This is Bear we're talking about.)

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Incho screamed, terrified of the crawling insects.

In his panic, Incho forgot that he was supposed to summon up an illusion of a ghost of the Northern Woods.

Why a ghost, you ask? Because everyone in Alice Academy knew how afraid Miakn-chan was when it came to ghosts and Haunted Houses. Just look at the Alice Festival from all those years ago.

(Yes, the one where Mikan-chan was trapped with Natsume-kun.)

So, instead of summoning a incredibly disfigured, horrifying ghost, Incho, wanting the insects to leave him alone, created a bird.

Not just any bird.

A bird that had blue wings, a sharp beak, and was approximately 50-ft tall.

If Incho didn't know if was an illusion he had conjured up, he would have been suitably terrified.

But at least the bugs went running—er, crawling—away when the bird showed up. That was a relief.

Now to get back to creating a scary illusion for Mikan-chan before something else happened...

Inch prepared to wave the illusion away when—

"PIYO!"

Oh no.

Incho's heart sank as he turned around, hoping against hope that he did not hear what he just did.

"PIYO!"

Too bad luck was not on his side.

Incho could see Piyo-chan, the giant mutated chick, marching through the woods, breaking trees and pulling bushes from their roots as it head straight towards Incho.

No, wait, it wasn't heading towards Incho.

Incho could see Piyo's eyes narrow as it glared at its target, the trespasser in its forest—the blue bird that Incho summoned!

Piyo was heading towards Incho's imaginary bird, and there was nothing he could do to stop it!

Oh, wait, there was something he could do. Incho promptly dispelled the illusion, mentally saying goodbye to the bird that saved his life.

Now, at this point, Piyo should have stopped moving once it saw the giant bird disappear into thin air. After all, it had nothing to fight, so it should have calmed down.

That was what Incho thought. It was what normally what anyone with a brain would think.

Which is why he was so baffled when Piyo continued to move on, past Incho and straight to a cabin in the middle of the woods.

...Hang on a minute, he knew that cabin.

It was Mr. Bear's cabin.

...oh no, Mikan-chan!

"Mikan-chan!" Incho screamed as Piyo, with a very loud "PIYO!," proceeded to knock down some trees that landed on top of Bear's cabin.

Don't need to remind you all to R&R, do I?

Happy Father's Day and stay tuned for the next chapter!