A/N: Are you ready for drama? I think you'll be surprised at the direction the second half of this chapter takes.

Warning: Mentions of torture and violence. Not graphic.

Chapter 2

Natsume POV

It was hard to believe that just six months ago, the thought of high school terrified him. Just six months ago he and his spoiled brat of a best friend were cramming hard to get into Gakuen Alice. Just six months ago, his dad had officially become the lead researcher for the Japanese Secretary of Defense.

Normally, a research position like the one Ioran Hyuuga had wouldn't gather the kind of publicity it did, but right now the military was undergoing a technological revolution and his dad at the forefront. It also helped that his dad was still young, in his early forties, and apparently had an extremely photogenic face…Natsume usually tried not to think about that.

The point is, six months ago, the whole of Japan had their eyes on the Hyuuga family and were watching them every step of the way, expecting them to set an example for future generations. Ioran never actually said this directly to Natsume, but Natsume wasn't stupid. He knew how to read the subtext.

Though he'd never admit it, this school that Mikan showed him was godsend. Half the kids here had parents that were either rich or active in the media and society. Gakuen Alice wasn't necessarily a school for rich kids but the kids here were better off than most. It's the perfect place for Natsume to make all the right friends and connections, so he won't slander the Hyuuga name.

Of course, when you have a best friend like Mikan Sakura…things don't always go as planned. Mikan was clumsy, always has been, but she was true and genuine. It was one of things Natsume appreciated the most about her. Her intentions were probably innocent in leaving a letter on his desk, but seriously, in this day and age, who writes letters anymore?

He was safe until lunch; then Mochiage was the first to pounce.

"Whoaaa Hyuuga, don't love letters normally go in your shoe locker?" Mochiage sneered, setting his plate down beside him. Mochiage's mom was a reporter that frequently did interviews with his dad. Though Natsume thought Mochu was an okay guy, he knows he has to play along if he wants to be accepted into their circle.

"It's not a love letter, Mochiage." Natsume rolled his eyes, calmly eating today's lunch: tonkatsu with steamed rice, miso soup, and pork dumplings. He loved Gakuen Alice's cafeteria.

"Sakura and Natsume are just acquaintances. We shouldn't assume anything." Ruka chipped in, sliding into his place on the other side of Natsume. Natsume really liked Ruka. Even if his parents weren't financial supporters of his dad's research, Natsume knew they'd be friends anyway. But Ruka's words just then made him cringe a little. Actually she's my best friend and I've known her for years…Natsume thought within the recesses of his mind.

He felt guilty for down playing his friendship with Mikan, but right now his main focus is befriending as many people as he can. Besides, even if he didn't announce it, it's not like he's keeping a secret. They'd find out about Mikan eventually.

"Hey Natsu-chan." Kokoro Yome and Kitsuneme Yome greeted simultaneously with their lunches in hand.

"Don't call me that." Is Natsume's simple response. It's simple really. He hates nicknames. All nicknames. The two blonde haired brothers just grinned and high fived each other. They did that when they successfully annoyed someone with their twinness.

"Guys, don't all interrupt at once. We're trying to figure out the deal with Natsu-kun's love letter." Hayate, Mochu's partner-in-crime who'd been busy stuffing his face with tonkatsu till now, interrupted.

"Dude, you got a love letter? Was it from Usumi?" Koko asked.

"No way brother, it was Sumire Shouda." Kistu shook his head. Koko glared at his twin.

"Guys. It's not a love letter. It's just a letter from Po- Sakura." Natsume hastily corrected himself. The chatter around them died down and suddenly everyone was really interested in Natsume so called "love letter."

"Po-Sakura?" Ruka asked.

"Tongue slipped." Natsume flushed.

"A letter from Mikan-chan?" Yuu asked interestedly, and if Natsume looked any closer, with a slight blush.

"Aye, Yuu! You're on a first name basis with Sakura already, ya sly dog!" Kitsu nudged the class rep playfully.

"Oh man, Sakura's pretty cool, Natsu-chan. We played a prank on Jin-Jin once!" Koko grinned in approval.

"Don't call me that!" The crimson-eyed teen snapped again. The twins dissolved into a fit of giggles. Just when Natsume thought they were moving on from the topic and he could enjoy his food in peace, Mochu got a devious look in his eyes that increased Natsume's sense of forlorn.

"Well…" Mochu interrupted, exchanging a look with Hayate. "If it's not a love letter, you wouldn't mind if we read it aloud, right?" Six pairs of expectant eyes turned to Natsume. The crimson-eyed teenager wondered if this is what it feels like to have a dumpling stuck in his throat because he certainly feels like he's suffocating right now.

"Come on guys, that would be an invasion of Sakura's privacy." Ruka frowned at them. Natsume shot Ruka a grateful look.

"If it's not a love letter then it's not really anything personal, right?" Hayate rebutted. Hayate reminded Natsume of a falcon sometimes and right now Mikan's letter was starting to look like prey.

"Read it, read it, read it, read it!" The twins began chanting. Their eyes were all on Natsume, expectantly awaiting his answer and that sense of suffocation returned. His mind blanked.

"Okay, fine!" And before his brain can tell him to stop, he flicked the letter in Mochu's direction. It's okay. It's Mikan. She's probably going to mention something about Aoi. Natsume rationalized.

"Yea-ah, now that's what I'm talkin about!" Mochu grinned and tauntingly opened Mikan's letter. Every fiber in Natsume's protested letting Mochu read the letter but his mind has him rooted in place. His face is masked with indifference. Mochu cleared his throat and began reading.

Natsume,

There's something I have to tell you. I've thought about this a thousand times before writing this, and I've rewritten this letter at least a hundred times just to make sure it was perfect. What I'm about to tell you might seem completely random, but I believe life is meant to be filled with spontaneous moments. These are the moments we carry with us in our memories and in our hearts. So here it is. I'm going to be spontaneous with you, and I hope you forgive me for my suddenness.

I love you, Natsume Hyuuga.

Natsume's heart sank. Not like this. Not like this. He tore the letter out of Mochu's hands. The guys all froze. Natsume's blood-pressure spiked. Like a thousand racehorses were speeding through his veins and the reverberating hooves digging into the dirt track sounded a lot like his own heartbeat, thundering in his ears. Then that Sumire Shouda girl broke the silence.

"Oh my gosh! How adorable! She wrote you a love letter! Isn't Sakura-san just precious?" Shouda purred in that high decibel screech of hers, as if there weren't enough eyes on them. It took a second for Natsume to comprehend what she said, but that second is all the guys need to chuckle and turn her thinly veiled insult into playful sarcasm.

"Calm down, man. We didn't know it was actually gonna be a love letter. I mean, seriously, I thought we passed the sixth grade three years ago." Mochu snorted awkwardly.

"Haha and this line right here 'I believe life is meant to be filled with spontaneous moments,' what the duck? She might as well say I've been stalking you for the past two months and I'm obsessed with you." Hayate cackled in response. The other guys tried to chuckle along but the awkwardness did not dissipate. If anything, it fueled their need to end this gross infantilization of his best friend with sarcasm.

"Natsume can do way better than Sakura anyway, right man?" Koko added, high-fiving Kitsu in the process. Shouda suddenly frowned sympathetically and began tutting her lips.

"Tsk, tsk tsk, poor Sakura-san. I heard she just barely passed the entrance exam and had an uncle or someone pull a few strings. I guess she didn't get the memo that it takes more than being a spunky little fangirl to date a Gakuen Alice Elite."

Natsume felt murderous. How dare they? These assholes don't know Mikan at all. He glared at all his so-called friends like he wanted to burn them to their core. But then his father's face appeared in his mind and he realized that if he blew his next words he'd lose all these guys for sure.

"Y-yeah…fangirls. What can you do?" He couldn't do it. He couldn't say anything else. But that one lie was enough to destroy ten years of friendship. With that one lie, Sumire stepped aside to reveal Mikan standing right behind her. Mikan had heard every word.

"See Mikan, he's not interested after all." Sumire patted the girl sympathetically. The Mikan that he'd known for ten years —the girl who hasn't changed her hairstyle since kindergarten much less the omnipresent smile that looked like it was tattooed on her face— was suddenly no longer the Mikan he knew anymore. There were tears in her eyes, not the spark of life and vivacity that Natsume had grown used to. Her face was red, but not with that demure blush that she sometimes showed when they hugged or got too close, it was a red of humiliation. He spent the last ten years of his life beating the shit out of anyone who dared to take that smile away. But now...he did that. He took that smile away from her.

Mikan stared at him like that. She then took a deep, steadying breath. "Is that what you really think Natsume? That I'm inferior to you?" She asked calmly.

He was being watched. The entire population of Gakuen Alice was in the cafeteria today just to watch this one moment. On one side, he had his best friend of ten years and on the other side, his means of proving himself worthy of the Hyuuga name. The choice was rather obvious.

"No, you're just a confused little girl mistaking idolization for feelings." His reasoning trumped his emotions, thus allowing him to humiliate his best friend in front of the entire population of Gakuen Alice and simultaneously break her heart.

Mikan POV

"No, you're just a confused little girl mistaking idolization for feelings." The glass shards of rejection slipped so effortlessly from the one she called her best friend. Mikan ran out of the cafeteria just as the chorus of "Burns!" flooded the space. She felt so many different things all at once; humiliated, betrayed, alone, discarded…

The pain she felt in her chest was comparable to nothing she'd ever felt in her short fifteen years of life. The thing Natsume took away from her that is inherently a part of her existence and essential for survival is...Natsume. The rejection hurts. Being thrown away hurts worse.

Mikan ditched school for the first time in her life that day.

She walked straight out of the pristine 'elite' gates of Gakuen Alice and didn't stop until she reached the bus stop. Tears steadily streamed down her cheek like a wound that didn't stop bleeding. People stared and pointed fingers at her, but she didn't care. They were strangers, just like her so-called school friends.

Hotaru didn't even glance once in her direction when Natsume's friends tore her confession apart. She kept eating her crab cake, callously oblivious to the world. Then there was Yuu; class rep was helping her get acclimated to the school. She even thought they were well on their way to becoming good friends. But Yuu just sat silently through the taunting. Kokoro Yome and Kitsuneme Yome were no strangers; they had their fun playing harmless pranks on their scary home room teacher Jinno-sensei.

Mikan put one foot in front of the next and somehow managed to find her way home. The Sakura Orphanage. Jii-san was her real grandfather but before Mikan was born, his home was an orphanage. The sight of the sakura petal painted door made her feel slightly better. She scrubbed her face free of tear tracks, plastered a bubbly smile, and threw the door open.

"Tadaima Jii-saaaaan!" She held her smile in place as if Jii-san would find out instantly if she didn't. There was no response.

Mikan blinked and looked around the house for real this time. Everything was a mess. Chairs were flipped upside down; the sofa downy was pulled out; shattered portraits littered the ground along with broken vases, china, and Jii-san's tea sets; there were knives embedded deep in the walls, and their tatami doors looked like a wild animal clawed through them.

"J-jii-san?" Mikan whispered frightfully. The house looked like something out of a horror movie. Something happened. She had to find Jii-san. "Jii-san!" Mikan screamed with more urgency. She ran from room to room screaming for Jii-san.

"Jii-san, please! Say something!" Hysteria overwhelmed the brunette teen when she opened room after destroyed room. There was a loud banging coming from the shed in the backyard. Even though it was crazy, Mikan ran towards the shed without a second thought. The thudding sound repeated. Like someone repeatedly throwing heavy objects against the walls. The shed quivered when the next thud came. Through the glass window, she saw a body being thrown against the wall.

"Jii-chan!" Mikan cried and rushed inside. She pulled her grandfather's head in her lap. He was broken and battered with bruises blue and purple coloring his face. Blood dripped from his nose, head, and mouth. "Oh my god." She gasped and looked up to see the perpetrator for the first time.

The perpetrator was wearing a black kimono with a hood shielding her face, she was very obviously a female. The only thing Mikan can make out is the woman's slender frame and pale hands with sharp red-painted nails. The cloaked woman chuckled.

"At last her highness appears…" The woman mocked.

"What do you want with us? Why are you hurting Jii-chan?" Mikan snarled, a dark hatred she didn't she was capable of rushed to the surface, exhilarated by every step the woman took closer to her.

"That old geezer? A causality. He refused to tell me where you were." The woman tutted, shaking her head nonchalantly. Mikan stiffened when the woman's cold fingers brushed against her cheek. Fear rooted her in place. A cold sweat broke on her brow.

"W-who are you?" Mikan asked. The woman threw her hood back, revealing a smirk on her deep red-stained lips. The woman didn't look much older than Mikan, nineteen or twenty at most, but the look in her eyes made her seem so much older. She was terrifyingly beautiful with skin as pale as ice, lips red like her nails, and eyes black like the night sky, framed by thick lashes and a beauty mark under her left eye.

"You foolish, foolish, princess…you really should know better than to forget my face!" The woman snapped and struck her hand out. As if gravity shifted, Mikan was thrown against the wall by some invisible force. The breath knocked out of her. Pain crept along her back, and her arms protested as she propped herself up. The woman dipped into a mocking bow. "I am Luna Koizumi, your highness."

"Y-your highness?" Mikan coughed. Luna quirked an eyebrow, amused.

"How funny and stupid you are. A thousand years later and you are still an idiot. A crown does not a princess make, right Princess?" Luna grabbed Mikan by the chin and yanked her face closer to inspect her. The sorceress's nails dug into the brunette's cheeks.

"I cannot believe I lost everything I ever held dear because of a half-brained, lowly servant like you." Luna released the girl's face only to launch her body against the wall again. This time Mikan heard a loud crack and felt something sharp pierce her back. She fell with an unceremonious thud and was showered in fragments of glass.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Mikan hissed in pain.

"I cannot believe you're dumb enough to keep speaking." Luna cackled humorlessly and struck her palm out again.

Mikan tried to fight the invisible force that dragged her over the glass fragments and smashed her head against the metal shed door. Like she was being crushed between two walls, all the oxygen in the room was squeezed out. Mikan saw spots. Blood flowed her scalp into small pools. The pain became unbearable, it's almost enough to forget her fear. Almost.

Luna repeated the motion of smashing Mikan into the wall again and again.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

"Come on princess, I feel like pulling feathers from a chicken." Luna giggled sadistically. Mikan coughed and blood splattered next to her. The heavy iron substance coated her tongue and dribbled down the side of her chin.

"P-please…please stop." Mikan sobbed. She didn't even have the strength to move anymore. The invisible force disappeared and oxygen rapidly filled her lungs. Through the curtain of her lashes, she saw Luna shake her head in disgust. Then she dug her sharp heel into Mikan's hand.

Mikan screamed.

"You're no fun at all without your memories, Mikan-sama. Killing you now would take the fun out of my revenge." Luna mocked over the cries of anguish. The sorceress twisted her heel harder and Mikan choked on her tongue. "No. I won't kill you just yet." She removed her heel and walked towards Jii-chan.

"No…don't hurt him." Mikan half-sobbed and half-begged. Jii-chan was her world. He's everything to her, a mother, a father, a friend, a confidant, everything. She can't lose him. Luna ignored her. With a flick of her fingers, Jii-san slid towards the sorceress.

Her grandfather moaned.

"Hm, so he's still alive."

"N-no…" The brunette whispered helplessly. Luna leaned over his body, ripped the seams of his shirt, and using her claw-like red nails, she began carving into his skin.

Mikan closed her eyes. Unable to bear the sight of torture.

The sorceress whispered something, too soft for the girl to hear. The carving on her grandfather's chest began glowing and from it emerged a vortex of light. It crackled with lighting and rumbled with thunder.

The force of the vortex shredded the metal shed apart. Mikan was thrown onto the grassy yard, her eyes skyward filled with the sight of a brewing storm. Breathing heavily, the girl gingerly pawed away from Luna.

"Demon beast, I command you to come forth and bind your will to my word." Luna's voice boomed over the roar of the thunder. A figure emerged from the vortex and began to materialize. It looked a lot like a komodo dragon but with tusk-like fangs, sharp scales on its back, and a spiked mallet for a tail. It's a demon —an oni from the folklore Jii-chan used to tell her. Luna's eyes finally turned to Mikan. "I'd suggest you start running Princess, this little creature is dying to taste human flesh."

With a glass punctured spine and blood spilling out of her orifices, the brunette rose anyway. Driven by fear and adrenaline, she stood on battered legs and sprinted for her life.

She'd seen the life drain from Jii-chan's eyes and now she was running away, leaving his broken, bruised body behind with that witch. The demon behind her was agile on its feet and forced Mikan to run into the forest. The blood loss and repetitive bashing on her head left spots dancing in her vision.

Many times, she tripped over roots and collided with tree trunks, but she kept running. It gained on her, following the trail of blood the girl oh-so-helpfully left behind. Its claws pounded on the soft earth and its tongue slithered out of its mouth, snarling in her direction.

The skies darkened even more. Her only source of light was the clash of lightning, angrily rippling through the sky.

The komodo demon lunged and an angry claw slashed the small of her back. Mikan screamed when it pierced her skin. The force sent her flying forward. A large oak tree broke her fall. She crumpled beneath it. She couldn't move any more. Her muscles simply refused.

The agony was overwhelming and it hurt to breathe; however, none of that compared to the growing dread as the demon inched closer.

Use your magic! A voice in her brain cried.

It walked slowly with exaggerated long movements; tauntingly. The scales on its sinewy back tautened and the creature's jaw hung open to reveal razor-sharp rows of teeth. She was cornered.

Your magic, Mikan!

The komodo dragon demon growled deeply in warning. Its hind legs locked to pounce. She was trapped.

USE IT NOW!

It launched. Mikan screamed and threw her hands over her head. And then, something exploded out of her—a force that was benevolent and malignant at once; a force so strong it visibly emitted rays of golden light; a force that circled the the beast, pierced its flesh, and burned the creature from the inside out. That force was coming from the palm of her hand. It was coming from Mikan.

When the light cleared, a new voice startled Mikan out of the frenzied shock.

"Your highness! Thank goodness, you are alright!" Mikan's eyes flicked to the source. There was a young girl, maybe her age, with opal skin, mystifying silvery-blue eyes and equally silver-blue ringlets of hair framing her face. Instinctively, Mikan knew this girl wasn't a threat, but hysteria overwhelmed logic.

"Stay back! I don't know what I just did but I'm not afraid to do it again!" That was a lie of course. Mikan was terrified of the force that burst out of her.

"I am Nobara Ibaragi and I am a faithful servant of yours Mikan-sama. I know you are frightened, but I promise you I will bring you no harm." The girl, Nobara soothed, dipping into a low bow. It worked. Mikan lowered her arms and then fatigue and exhaustion overwhelmed her. "Sleep Mikan-sama, all will be explained when you awaken." Was the last thing Mikan heard.

Writing the dialogue for this chapter was incredibly taxing. I'm not as proficient at sarcasm as I used to be and struggle to hurt/harm/insult my characters. Sigh, I tried my best. Please let me know if the dialogue is inorganic or forced.

Also, I am tentatively updating this story every Sunday and Wednesday until chapter 10. After that...hehe we'll see.

Review please!

Kiki1770