Just a heads up, I combined the original chapters 5 and 6, since they were really short before.

Disclaimer: I no own, you no sue.

[o]

Chapter 5

Natsume's POV

"It's still wrong," came a snappy voice from behind me. Saito was in a bad mood today and she was taking it out on me. I was very tempted to try out some of my new Alice techniques on her just to shut her up, but the worry of her own Alice kept me in check. The girl in question stepped forward and hit the dummy in a series of movements.

"If you stop inside his range without disabling him first you'd be out with a solid punch, or dead if he has a knife. You have a brain, use it." I clenched my fists even further and bit my tongue to keep from snapping at her. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't the tenth time she's said it.

I did it exactly how she had done it, but still heard the dreaded sigh from behind me

"Now you're being sloppy." Finally, something inside me snapped. I walked away from the dummy, panting, and grabbed my water bottle.

"What are you doing?" She had stayed where she was, and knew perfectly well what I was doing.

"I'm taking a break until you're ready to be a mentor again." She turned to face me with narrowed eyes.

"Well perhaps when you're done pouting you can come back and actually get it right this time." My eye twitched. I recapped my bottle and walked to the door.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." I shut the door before she could say anything. No way was I going to be her punching bag. If she wanted to relieve stress she was welcome to do that on her own.

I had made it a decent way down the trail when I heard quick footsteps crunching the small rocks of the trail behind me. At the sound I rolled my eyes I turned, stuffing my hands in my pockets and wondering if she was going to try to force me to go back, but was surprised when she stopped with an almost guilty frown on her face.

"I didn't mean any of that," she began, meeting my gaze fully. "I've just been in a bad mood." Her eyes abruptly slammed to the ground, causing mine to widen in surprise. Surely she wasn't…

She bent into a slight bow. "I'm sorry. If you give me another chance I'll do better this time."

…She was.

I shuffled uncomfortably. Apologies from Saito were unheard of, from what Ruka and I had been told. Not knowing how to react or if I was supposed to say anything in response to her abrupt apology, I instead turned and started back in the direction we came from.

"Well, are you coming?" Her footsteps caught up to mine and soon we were walking side-by-side.

"Why are you in a bad mood anyway?" Her frown deepened and she let out a heavy sigh.

"It's Persona. He keeps getting under my skin." So this was about yesterday. During the Dangerous Class Persona had announced that everyone would have increased missions until everyone in the hospital had recovered. Apparently Saito had asked the day before for him to reduce her load. It had resulted in many glares her way and no doubt their resentment towards her would last a while.

I wasn't sure if I was the only one to notice just how many missions were taken from her load. From the amount that was shared around the group she no doubt had reason to complain to Persona.

I had also noticed more frequent injuries appearing on her. They appeared faster than she could heal, and it was a wonder she had been able to stand so many missions in the first place. No wonder she was in a bad mood.

But I didn't say any of this and once we reached the gym again we continued training until the sun had dipped below the horizon. True to her word she was much more tolerable this time and rather than training on a dummy she faced me herself, calling out my mistakes as I made them so I could quickly fix them until both of us were panting with a good amount of bruising and promised soreness for me in the morning.

I left her like usual to do her own training, wondering where she ever managed to fit sleep into her schedule, but not really caring enough to ask.

The threat of my own missions was looming ever closer. Saito said that mentees are given close to six months of training before they begin on simpler missions, though still accompanied by their mentor, and I'd been in the Dangerous Class for close to a month now. I shivered in anticipation and worry.

Sometimes when Saito returned from missions there was a darkness in her eyes. A darkness that can eat someone whole. It never stayed long, but I wondered what was out there that could cause such a look on someone, and when I'd have to experience it for myself. It wasn't something I was looking forward to.

The next day Saito actually came out of her room, looking more rested than she had in a while. Getting a break from the constant missions was already doing her good.

When we made it to homeroom Ruka slid into the seat next to me, leaving Tobita in their usual spot. I didn't doubt that Ruka would come sit in the back with us, but Tobita seemed anxious around Saito – the glares she was always sending at people probably didn't help with that – and since Tobita was Ruka's partner he had to sit with him for now.

Ruka sighed, slouching over slightly as he rested his elbows on the table. I kicked my feet up, the dreaded soreness ever-present, and Saito rolled her eyes at him.

"It's not for long. As soon as baka-sensei thinks you guys are familiar enough with things you 'll be free to spend all your free time with each other." I closed my eyes, waiting for the jab, and was not disappointed. "You know, like a normal couple." And there it was.

Surprisingly, Ruka didn't react to her ruse like usual, only sending a brief glare her way before bringing them down again. After a moment Saito's eyebrows lifted slightly and she leaned forward in her seat to see him better.

"Did I break you? Or are you just really upset? I can't tell. Boy drama is completely beyond me." By now I was looking at Ruka in concern, too. He ignored me as well and just sighed even deeper than before. It was like he wasn't aware of us at all.

"Hyuuga," Saito whispered. "He's your friend. Fix him." I shot her a look but otherwise ignored her.

"Oi, Ruka." When he didn't answer I jabbed him in the arm. "Oi." He quickly straightened in surprise, only now noticing me.

"Oh, Natsume." His eyes narrowed to look past me. "For a second I thought you were Saito." But even that was only half-hearted.

"What's wrong?" He seemed surprised by my straight-forward answer – honestly, he's had long enough to get used to it – and leaned forward again. For a moment I thought he wouldn't answer.

"I miss home," he said so quietly I almost didn't hear. Saito began to get comfortable again, no longer worried.

"Homesickness will pass quickly. As soon as you realize you don't have any choice other than staying here it gets easy." We both ignored her, because she had no idea what Ruka was talking about. I felt the ache, too. The ache for how things had been before the Academy. Before the accident.

I brought my legs down and sat up straight, feeling my eyes soften towards my only friend and he looked back up at me at the movement. I understood, he knows that.

"Me too." I missed father and Aoi. Even the kidnappers Ruka had to watch out for were preferable to this. There wasn't any getting out of this; we had already been caught, and they weren't going to let us go.

I had already told him about the Dangerous Ability Class and the training I had to do each day. I told him of the missions I'd have to do someday, and that they're the reason Saito doesn't come to class sometimes. What I hadn't told him yet was Persona's growing threats against him and Aoi, or the darkness in Saito's eyes that I was afraid would eventually grow in mine.

Baka-sensei – as I'd picked up from Saito – entered the room, announcing something or other, and I put my feet back on the table as Ruka left to sit with Tobita.

Saito was leaning her head on a hand propped up on the desk, regarding me with those abysmal purple eyes of hers that were really too deep for someone our age, and a question popped up in my mind regarding her comment earlier.

Had her homesickness passed quickly?

…

I left Saito to go to lunch on her own, instead joining Ruka and his partner who stayed in the classroom a bit longer to put their books away. I waited until she was out and then some to make sure she didn't come back, then turned to Tobita fully so he couldn't ignore me.

"What's up with Saito?" It was only after asking him that I realized I had phrased it the same as the last time I'd asked about her, not elaborating at all about my new concerns.

"I told you, not a lot is-" I cut him off before he could give me the same useless information.

"No, tell me everything you know. Rumors, gossip, anything the sensei's have said." Tobita began thinking, an uncertain look on his face as he mulled something over in his mind and I shot him a look that made him reconsider not telling me.

"Well, there is this one rumor that's been around. I don't really like spreading rumors, though…" I narrowed my eyes even further at him, and he continued.

"I don't know if it's true or not – well I hope it's not – but there really isn't much going around about her," he babbled.

"Just tell me," I snapped to interrupt his pointless ranting. He pursed his lips, looking down uncertainly.

"Well, there's a rumor saying that the reason she was taken to the Academy was because, well…" Before I could threaten him to continue already, he took a quick breath.

"Because she killed her parents!"

…

We entered the loud cafeteria room in silence, processing Tobita's words. I had suspected something had happened to her to gain the Academy's interest at such a young age, but I had never thought it would be something so dark.

"it's just a rumor," Tobita reminded quickly. "I doubt any of that is even true."

Just the same, there's a truth in every lie. Even if it wasn't exactly like the rumor, there had to be something along those lines that had happened to her.

The three of us sat down like we usually do, not outwardly portraying what we were feeling, but across the table from me I saw Saito's eyes narrow in suspicion.

"But don't say anything to Saito." Ruka immediately pounced on this, wondering why he shouldn't confront her about it to see if it was true.

"I'm worried because, well, if it's not a rumor…" Ruka's eyes widened in understanding while mine narrowed at the accusation.

"She wouldn't kill us too, would she?" Tobita averted his gaze and shuffled uncomfortably.

"That's what I'm worried about. No one's really asked her about it before, so I don't know how she'd react. I don't think she would hurt us! But you never really know with Kutan-Chan."

I didn't worry about her killing us – she didn't seem like the murderous type, no matter how unwelcoming she was – but Ruka still regarded her more warily than he did before, and that's saying something.

I turned my gaze to him and watched as he shot a not-so-subtle glance at her before shoving a bite in his mouth when she caught him. I sighed at his attempts but continued to think. Finally, Saito appeared to have taken enough. She finished her banana and dropped the empty peel on her tray.

"Hyuuga," she drawled. "I think Ru-Chan's attempting to cheat on you. He keeps eyeing me." Ruka narrowed his eyes at her even as his cheeks colored at the failure of his subtlety.

"Yes," I retorted. "I'm sure he is." Her eyes slowly widened in surprise, but a little smirk grew on her face as she turned back to Ruka.

"You hear that? He doesn't have any faith in you." As they continued bickering I watched the twinkle of mischief in her eyes, then turned to my own lunch. No, she's definitely not a murderer. I wouldn't dismiss the fact that she may have killed someone, but she wasn't a murderer.

Ruka finally stopped talking, just ignoring her, and the closest thing she could do to a pout appeared on her face. And by that I mean she glared at him.

"You're no fun when you're like this." She then stood up and dropped her tray off. A moment later the bell went off and the rest of us followed.

"How do you put up with her all day?" Ruka whined as we went back to the dreaded classroom. I shot a look at him, avoiding some kid floating in the hallway, and kept walking.

"She doesn't tease me as much. It's just fun to bother you." He gave me an exasperated look and took a seat next to Tobita, who had finished his lunch earlier than everyone else and left the cafeteria straight away. I considered whether he really was worried about Saito killing him for knowing the rumor, then shut my eyes. This whole thing was ridiculous. It was a rumor; everyone must know it. Even if she was a murderer, she wouldn't go around killing everyone just for knowing a rumor.

Just the same, I kept my gaze away from her so she wouldn't somehow be able to read my thoughts on the subject. Even though I didn't worry about her murdering me in an ally somewhere, there was still a rumor of murder going around about her, which means death has happened near her. That's something to watch out for no matter the person.

There are rumors like that about you, an evil little voice whispered in the back of my head. I dismissed it quickly, but I knew it was true. Maybe Persona had been right; maybe Saito and I did have some things in common.

...

Ruka was convinced Saito was going to sneak into our rooms that night and murder us. He was currently pacing his room while I lay on his bed reading a manga. He paced past me again and I forced myself to ignore him, reading the little speech bubble for the dozenth time before finally processing it. Then he paced past me again and I had to continue with the process again for the next bubble.

I sighed and put the manga down, propping my arms up under my head to look at the pacing boy.

"Either stop or talk. You're distracting me." He let out an exasperated sound and plopped down onto the foot of the bed.

"Why aren't you taking this more seriously?! You train with her every day and live down the hall from her!" I flexed my legs at the reminder of training and found the ever-present soreness still there.

"Remember when Tobita said that it was a rumor?" I drawled. It was getting steadily easier to ignore the soreness as time went by.

"Remember when Tobita said she killed her parents?" I sat up, putting the manga down.

"Whether she killed her parents or not, I can't just stop going to sessions with her. She'd have to tell Persona, and he'd…" Well, he'd do a lot of things. The foremost of which was kick Ruka from a two star to a no star and do who knows what to Aoi before rubbing her suffering in my face, both of us knowing I was powerless to stop him. A chill ran down my spine and I shuddered, trying to shoo it away. Ruka immediately calmed at my shudder and slumped.

"I know. You're trapped." And no more had to be said, because that's all there was to it. I was trapped, so he and Aoi were trapped, and it wasn't a long shot to assume Saito was trapped, too.

"I can't judge her by a rumor," I said quietly, but I knew Ruka was listening. "Not with the rumors about me."

"But that's different!" I gave him a look, and he quickly elaborated. "That's different, because you didn't actually cause the fire. You were just protecting Aoi-Chan." I continued staring at him, trying to get him to see that rumors are all the same. My situation could be the exact same as hers. Maybe she had a sibling that she was trying to protect by taking the blame.

I frowned and looked down as I thought about that. She said Persona didn't have any leverage over her, so does that mean her sibling wasn't brought to the Academy?

Or did she kill her sibling, too? Came a treacherous thought that I ignored.

"Either way I'm continuing my training. Besides, it's not long before I have to go on missions. I need all the training I can get."

And boy did I get that training. As time went on sessions grew longer, and I'd occasionally find myself finally collapsing into bed in the early hours of the morning (still leaving Saito behind to train on her own). I could see differences in myself, though. I grew faster and stronger, and could control my Alice better than ever before. Weapons were eventually introduced to some extent, focusing on silent killers that can be concealed and held easily without hinderance. Guns were rarely used by us students, so the main focus right now were knives and daggers. From what I'd gleaned from the others in the Dangerous Class they usually didn't even bother with those, only relying on their Alices to get them through. But learning to use standard weapons was something Saito proved to be unwilling to budge on. On a more surprising note, Saito's continued yoga routines and meditation were paying off, so I could concentrate for long amounts of time and dodge blows swiftly. I was nearly ready for my missions. And that's good, because I only had a month left before my first.

Persona was sitting in on my training sessions more and more frequently, much to my chagrin. I could see his presence grating on Saito – especially whenever he called her out for incorrectly teaching me something that she seemed to be doing perfectly fine with – and we were both relieved whenever we made it through a session without him joining us at all.

The other class members were gradually released from the hospital so everyone's loads were reduced back to what they'd been before, and the hard feelings shown towards Saito cooled out and were forgotten. Everything was going back to normal, but I knew it was only for now. This was only the calm before the storm.

It was on one of the days Persona was watching my training that I saw Saito's Alice for the first time.

"Why don't you be his mentor if I'm doing it so wrong?!" She finally snapped. Persona regarded her coolly, then turned to me.

"You're aware of what Kokutan's Alice is, are you not?" My blood chilled at his abrupt question and I saw Saito go still.

I nodded, not liking the direction this was taking.

"But you've never seen it?" Another nod. "Natsume, your training is finished for today. You are to stay for Kokutan's training instead." Mine and Saito's faces paled simultaneously. She was the first to snap out of it, folding her arms and glaring at the masked man.

"I don't train with my Alice. You know that."

"Natsume needs to know what you're capable of if he wants to fully trust you to watch his back on missions. Wouldn't you say, Natsume?" I didn't answer, but I could feel a morbid curiosity growing inside of me.

Though I didn't admit it, I was curious about her Alice and how it worked.

"And besides, who would I use it on? You? It's not an Alice people like training with." Persona didn't answer but turned his masked face to me. And the appeal dropped.

"You're not serious." No answer. "Persona," she sighed like she was telling a child something obvious. I wondered if that was wise. "If I do that there won't be any trust in me left for the missions, so you may as well just forget this." I felt myself relax at her reasoning. Persona didn't move his gaze, watching me through his little white mask.

"Yes," he finally spoke. "I suppose you're right." He turned abruptly. "I'll send in Nakamura." When he shut the door behind him I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and Saito made an annoyed sound.

"I can't stand him!" She burst out, throwing her arms up in annoyance. We busied ourselves putting dummies away, then resigned ourselves to waiting for him to show up again. I waited with a water bottle and watched as Saito began stretching. I was familiar with the warm-up stretches she was doing and was surprised to realize that they didn't make me sore at all anymore. I was getting stronger, and it was about time. I took a sip of water, letting my eyes drift to the ceiling. I'm so sick of being sore.

"Oi, Saito," I called over. She lifted her eyes to me but continued her stretches. "Would you have used your Alice on me?" She narrowed her gaze.

"Of course I would have," she snapped. I raised an eyebrow and she dropped her gaze as she bent over forward at the waste, easily reaching her feet.

"It sounded like you were defending yourself," I noted lazily. Though I couldn't see her face I just knew her eye twitched. A defeated sigh eventually came from her as she straightened up again.

"I wouldn't have liked it, but I would've. It's never good for anyone to get on Persona's bad side." I smirked at her, though something relaxed in me at knowing she wouldn't have used her Alice on me unless forced to. Her face somehow grew serious even through the impassive mask she was wearing.

"That being said, I expect you to use your Alice on me if Persona doesn't give you a choice on it. People only disobey Persona when they have a death wish." I understood, and knew my face was as grim as hers. Then something occurred to me.

"You disobey Persona all the time." Isn't that the point of all the punishments she gets? She smirked.

"Over time it's easy to tell when he's giving a command and when he's giving more of a suggestion. Those you can disobey."

Before I could demand an elaboration, Persona came back into the room trailing a fidgeting middle schooler. His eyes darted to me and Saito quickly, before going back to Persona.

"You can't be serious." He mirrored Saito's earlier words. "These two are the strongest in the class. I can't fight them." Persona corrected that he was only fighting Saito – to which the middle schooler paled considerably – but I ignored him, because hey. I'm already considered one of the strongest in the class.

I sent an ego-satisfied smirk to Saito while she loosened some of her many earing Alice Restrainers, but she was sending one right back at me. Mine muffled and I sent her a dark look, to which her smirk only widened.

Nakamura didn't stand a chance. Five minutes into their spar he was flat on his back, and she hadn't even used her Alice.

"This is a spar with Alices," Persona immediately snapped at the two of them. "Nakamura, that was pitiful. Saito, you're being sloppy." My eyes widened in surprise at the familiar criticism, recognizing it as one Saito often threw at me. She didn't say anything, but I could see her fists clench.

Nakamura sent a pleading look Saito's way, but she was now straightening, setting herself up for a true fight this time. My blood chilled as her eyes emptied of all emotion and were filled with the blank darkness I occasionally saw there when she returned from missions. It's the darkness that's there when there will be no mercy given to you. The darkness you see before you're murdered.

The rumor floating around about her returned to my mind.

"The rumor's that she didn't have control of her powers when she was young," Tobita continued after his initial outburst. "When she got really mad at them one day she made them commit suicide. The worst part is, when she was brought to the school she didn't care. It's like she didn't have any emotions at all."

I wasn't the only one who saw the change in her. Nakamura stood up shakily, bringing his arms up quickly in a defensive stance. It's when I saw Persona smirk that I got worried for him.

I didn't even have time to blink. One second Nakamura was standing, the next he'd been knocked down and Saito was on top of him.

She raised her hand and what looked like black fog started coming from it, wisping lazily towards Nakamura almost like it could sense him. He let out a shocked yelp and began wriggling to get out from under her, and he would've made it, but she brought her hand down to his head.

I held my breath, now standing up, and everything inside of me told me to run away. But Nakamura had gone still for a moment. Saito removed her hand and got off, standing up quickly but still looking down at him. Then her head suddenly snapped up to look at something in the rafters just as Nakamura did. I looked up as well but didn't see anything.

And the screaming began. I slapped my hands over my ears, trying to block the shrill sound that was coming from Nakamura.

His mouth and eyes were wide open, tears streaming down his face, as he screamed the worst sound I'd ever heard. Saito didn't cover her ears, though. She just kept looking up into the rafters at the thing only she and Nakamura could see, with a frown on her face. And though I was aware of Persona still smirking from further in the room, it wasn't him I was looking at, but her.

That was the first time I realized that monsters don't always look like monsters.