Dedicated to CrimsonMemories, who really likes a certain cold-hearted lady in this story.

There are things Natsume does and doesn't remember, or, more like things that he can recall, and the situations surrounding them, which are foggier.

He remembers the call, and he remembers losing badly to his Alice, but he cannot quite recall the specifics that took him to the wire-fenced dumping ground; a few shabby bins and fly-tipped junk he only hoped to god there weren't any homeless people sleeping in. He knows what he did and how he did it, but trying to remember it he only comes up with an imagined version of what he did.

He snaps back when he started flame-throwing – a lighter taped to an aerosol can is surprisingly effective – and he was amused for a while by scorching the paint off some of the bins.

Luckily, or unluckily, it depended on your perspective, someone had recently dumped a sofa in this waste-heap (try as he had to erase the locations from his mind, he still knew all the best places off by heart), and his next hit was to coat it in lighter fuel and set it on fire with matches: 'old skool' pyro, or so to speak. He liked the way the phosphorus flashed as it lit.

He remembers the point at which he got bored with flame-throwing, and simply started tossing the cans onto the sofa. He realizes now that it was not the best idea, considering they explode. He supposed that was why his arm was bleeding now. And his stomach.

It must have hurt, but everything hurt, so there was no differentiation. He'd gone out because he believed that giving into his Alice would bring him the relief he wanted; after talking to Mikan he wanted to stop what he was feeling.

The worst thing was that it didn't. That was probably why he never got close to anything with people in it. If there was one thing he'd beaten in counselling it was doing anything that could hurt people. Sure, the Academy didn't have anyone in at this time of night, but that wasn't the place he had a problem with, and he knew another attack would put him behind bars. Real prison bars.

This was just destruction where he could best wreck it: as big a mess as he could create without setting off too many alarms.

But it still didn't change anything, and as he threw the last of his wasted money on the fire – a few half-empty lighter fuel cans, and with a cough he sloshed the petrol (for 'lawnmowers') he'd bought over the biggest fire he'd built, which was over the charred frame of the old sofa.

That really got the thing going, and for a second everything fired up so bright he couldn't even see, and even when that faded spots danced in front of his eyes. For that second he was free of it all, but it was a pyrrhic victory, because the moment it ended he saw – clearer than ever before – how utterly fucked he was like this.

He fell to his knees, scuffing them in the dirt, and covered his face with his hand. Around that time one of the canisters finally popped, and red-hot debris flew out and lightly coated his fire-facing side. Burning on his hands let him know that he had probably just saved his eyes, and as he rolled backwards in shock and dragged newly-raw skin against the earth, he knew this was no replacement.

This was revenge. Revenge on him. He'd sought vengeance on Mikan, and now he loved her so much it was tearing him apart. How fitting. Love is Vengance.

He groaned into the dirt; it was in his eyes, his nose, his hair. But it was around now that he heard the steps, and the voices of adults.

"Oi! What the fuck is that?!" came the shout, and in an instant Natusme's flight-hormones shot around his body. He was on his feet in seconds – to hell with the pain – and running fast towards the fence; he knew they would be chasing him, so he headed towards a pile of rubbish and spring-boarded off it, grabbing the top of the fence and scrambling over it.

He could hear them behind him, but he was pretty sure he'd get away with it, as he tore down the dark alleyways with streams of water streaking out from his eyes – from the smoke, of course. He was too fast for them, and they had just been passers-by, it seemed.

Still, this did not change the fact that he knew this wasn't going to work, and he was going to have to do something before he just burnt up and died somewhere.

"Imai-san, there is a call for you," a robotic voice told Hotaru Imai, and she spun around on her office chair towards the phone. There was an eighty-four percent chance that it was Mikan, she estimated.

"Hello," she said.

"Imai?" came a hoarse crackle of a voice, and Hotaru nearly dropped the phone.

"Who is this?" she asked worriedly.

"Hyuuga Natsume," was the reply. "I am in your neighbourhood; this is terrible for me to ask, but I need your help." He coughed loudly, and Hotaru did not doubt his last statement – he sounded very ill.

"Why are you calling me, Hyuuga Natume?" she said coldly. "How did you get this number?"

"I..." He coughed again. "It's a long story, but I traced you from an article online." Another cough; he was surprised they even let him into that internet cafe. "I really need your help, Imai. It's about Mikan." Hotaru was still silent, but there was a more attentive air to it after he'd dropped the important name.

"What about Mikan?" she asked.

"I just..." he croaked. "I mean... she's gone and..."

"I know she has gone away," Hotaru said. "What of it?"

"I can't stand it," he confessed bitterly – there was no point lying to this girl. "I have to tell her something."

Hotaru was quiet again for a few moments, and then she answered him.

"I will give you my address, and you must give me your location, and I will explain the fastest route," she said casually, and even Natsume was a little surprised by her willingness to offer up information; he would get to the bottom of it later.

Hotaru was very curious as to what Natsume was doing, but if her predictions were right it was in her best interests to help him. That was why she let him into her home – the annexe in which she had her lab had separate entrances and exits to the rest of her house, and her parents were asleep already. However, she did not expect what she saw.

"What... happened to you?" she said in surprise, and stared at Natsume.

"Just shit," he muttered, and rubbed his face with a hand. "I have to get to her," he explained. "She must have given you her address, right?"

"You know her address."

"I mean her new one," he said. "In Hokkaido." Hotaru watched him.

"Surely you cannot mean?" she said in confusion.

"Even if I had to cross an ocean I'd get to her," he said sternly. "I have to see her." Hotaru could see that Natsume wasn't in a state to do much, but for the first time in quite a while she believed herself to be the more functional of Alices, and that did not happen often.

"You are bleeding," she told him. "You cannot go like this." She did not like it, but she knew what she was going to have to do. It wasn't so bad with Natsume; she felt like she could trust him – if Mikan did, then she would. "Come inside," she instructed, and after a stare-out Natsume gave in.

"Sit there," she said, pointing to a stool in one of the smaller rooms. "I will not be long."

Natsume did as he was told, and was even more surprised to see Hotaru return with a medical kit in her hands.

"I don't need..." he tried to make excuses for himself, but Hotaru would not hear it.

"You are bleeding," she re-stated. "You cannot cross Japan with second degree burns and other injuries." She stepped forwards to him. "Do not..." she said a little uncertainly. "Do not move, understand?" With this, she reached out and touched his arm. Natsume froze, and barely moved so much as a muscle as Hotaru pulled up his sleeve; revealing a messily clotting cut he wasn't quite sure how he got.

He realized he must be in a real state for Imai to breach this huge barrier for her.

"Why... are you doing this?" he asked quietly, as she cleaned and dressed the first of his cuts.

"You are going to travel to Hokkaido and see Mikan, aren't you?" she said.

"Yes," he replied.

"You," she broke off for a moment, as if carefully considering her words, "love her, don't you?" Natsume's breath hitched in his throat – this could be very important, he would be shooting himself in the foot to lie. So he nodded, in a tiny but just recognisable movement.

"So you are going to try to bring her back, aren't you?" Hotaru suggested, and Natsume shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "But I... just... have to go," he muttered brokenly.

"I also want Mikan to come back to Tokyo," Hotaru remarked. "I believe you are the one most likely to achieve that. By helping you, I can also help myself." Natsume smirked for a moment – there were some things that apparently did not change about Hotaru. Ever.

"Thank you," he said, and he could almost swear she averted her eyes from him on purpose.

"There is nothing worthy of thanks," she informed him coolly. "I am merely using you to satisfy my own goals."

"You... care for her really, don't you?" he said, quietly; an underhand statement.

"If..." She paused. "If there was one person I could ever... love... I believe there is a ninety-eight percent chance that is Mikan." She looked at Natsume – in the eyes – for no more than a second. "Perhaps we share that also," she said. Natsume smirked briefly; he doubted Hotaru and he loved Mikan in exactly the same way, because he was pretty sure they did not have nearly as much sex (or indeed any) as he had with her.

"So you want me to bring her back?" he suggested.

"Mikan has made the best choice for herself," Hotaru said, "but... if unseen circumstances were to necessitate her return to Tokyo, I would not be dissatisfied. Perhaps even to the contrary." She glanced at Natsume, but he seemed to be following her just fine. She found it somewhat relieving to speak with a person she did not have to explain things to – Natsume was intelligent enough to simply understand.

"Thank you, Imai," he said again, and Hotaru stiffened.

"It is not necessary to thank me," she said. "I do not understand what I am doing to require thanks."

"Well see... uh, never mind," Natsume mumbled. "I need to leave as soon as possi... ow!" he snarled as she suddenly wrapped an antiseptic dressing over one of his rawer wounds and it stung.

"You will need to take a train; do you have funds?" He shook his head. "I can lend you some. Would a hundred yen be sufficient." Natsume stifled a laugh, because he knew she was offering such a pitiable amount not because she was tight-fisted, but because she had little to no understanding of the functions of currency and value – an effect of her Alice.

"More than that," he simply replied.

"A million yen?"

Natsume spluttered. Where the hell did she have that kind of money?!

"A little less..." Eventually they came to an arrangement, and although unsure as to the value of currency, Natsume noticed that she was strict enough on charging interest and pursuing its return. In all fairness he wasn't in a position to complain, because she had at least offered to lend him money in the first place – he spent all of his on pyro equipment.

He let Imai patch up another gash he never realized he had – a tiny splinter of metal was between two of his ribs, and it was only the tiny bloodspot that led her to its discovery.

"This is contaminated metal," she remarked as she yanked the thing out; Natsume stayed still, as although Hotaru had conceded – and perhaps even become comfortable with – touching him, he doubted she would be ready for him to move suddenly and threaten to touch her. "It could have given you blood poisoning if left too long.... You should also schedule a tetanus vaccination." Natsume nodded, and waited until Hotaru had put him back into a better state. It was a rather unique experience for both of them, as the girl had a massive calming effect on him. She always seemed reserved and level-headed, and her calm handling of the situation passed onto him – it was hard to get worked up about something when there was another person completely under-reacting. He left her annex feeling more centered. He knew what he was going to do.

Even if he couldn't bring her back, at least he'd know he had tried... although the prospect of failure did not look good to him.

"Goodbye, Imai-san," he said at the doorway, "and tha... I will tell Mikan how you feel." He could've sworn that for just a flash Hotaru smiled, before she slammed the door in his face and went back to bed.

Natsume discovered the at the local train station that he was just in time for the last train into the city – thank god – and made it to the central station; however, there were no trains heading North until the next day. He didn't quite remember when he last slept, as he kept odd hours when he was on an Alice binge, but he did not feel like sleeping in a station.

However, it was not like he had a choice, and he ended up snatching a few awkward hours of rest on a cold bench. He got more sleep on the train the next day – he tried to take the next one available in the morning, but it was fully booked, so he had to wait for one later in the day, meaning he had to sit around the station even longer. He didn't eat (no money) and barely even moved; he was too run down to do anything except follow his one compulsion: find Mikan, confess.

Barely half an hour after he finally got a seat on a train heading north, he was asleep against the glass of the window; he had barely slept in over thirty hours, so he needed rest to get his head straight. Straighter, at least.

Hotaru had, of course, given him an address, and even provided a small map to help him find the locality Mikan's mother lived in – it shouldn't take him too long to get there, but it would probably be getting dark by the time he got there. He never was the best with directions.

But this was too important to fuck up, and slowly the anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach grew. The light faded, but he got to the address he needed before it was completely dark – still finding it hard to believe that he'd actually done this, crossed the country, just to find her.

It was the right house, on the right street, so he only hoped that she was in. Quite a nice house, but nothing overstated. He walked up to the front door and stood there for a few moments to gather himself.

He wouldn't be able to think, he'd just have to come out and say it. He hoped that his feelings would guide him through it anyway – they'd taken him here already.

He rang the bell, and waited for a fear-filled minute until he heard footsteps behind the door.

"Mom! There's someone at the..." shouted a voice that was painfully, painfully familiar. Natsume couldn't hold it back now; he didn't come all this way to bottle it, so he bit his tongue and waited for her to realize who he was.

No. No fucking way.

The last line is basically Mikan. I seem to have run out of things to say in a/n, so leave a review please.