Summary: A 12-year-old Mikan Sakura suddenly found an abandoned baby in front of her dorm room. And the next thing she knew, she is forced by Narumi-sensei to take care of it, along with a certain crimson-eyed guy! What will happen then? NxM
Disclaimer: I don't own Gakuen Alice, but I do own the plot.
Suddenly Becomes 'Mama'
by Yuuto Tamano
Chapter 4: The Mysterious Man
"Where are we?"
Mikan asked in surprise, when only the ocean of sand and dry wind which she could see in her hazel eyes. She turned to Hotaru and Ruka. They both also seemed surprised by what they saw, even though the Ice Queen's face still looked flat. The brunette then intentionally swallowed the Gulliver Candy she ate and that caused her to turn back into her original figure—her figure when she was 12 years old.
Ruka and Hotaru also had managed to restore themselves as before. The animal lover then bowed his body and clutched a handful of sand in his fist. Both of his cerulean eyes stared at the grains of sand floating in the wind. He then looked at Mikan, "Looks like now we are in the desert."
Mikan pouted as she looked at Hotaru, "You said we would arrive at a place where Natsume is, didn't you?" she protested as she shook Hotaru's arm, "Then why now we are in the desert?"
"Don't touch me." Hotaru said flatly as she fired her Baka-Gun at Mikan. That caused the pigtailed girl flying onto the sky. But strangely, at a certain point, her body bounced back and fell down, crashing the grains of sand at the bottom.
Both Hotaru and Ruka were widening their eyes.
"H-Hotaru! You meanie!" She sobbed as she stroked her head and rubbed her eyes, "Ow, the sand got into my eyes!"
Unfortunately, her two best friends were more focused on the strange event that happened before their eyes. "Did you see that, Hotaru?" asked Ruka to convince himself.
Hotaru just nodded slowly. She placed her index finger and thumb on her chin. She repeated in her mind what was happening in front of her eyes and thought of all the possibilities that might happen. She knew that her invention wasn't a fail. That's why, she felt confident that they would be arrive in the same place as the Black Cat, no matter near or far. There must be a trick which was applied in this place.
And Mikan had proved that.
She approached the brunette, who was still rubbing her eyes, and then patted her shoulder, "You're a genius sometimes, Mikan." she said with a grin.
"H-Huh?"
The Ice Queen then rummaged through her pocket and handed Mikan some kind of eyes purifier, "Here, drip it into your eyes." she said, and after that, she whispered something to Ruka.
While Mikan was still busy with her eyes, Ruka and Hotaru then walked separately toward the two opposite sides; Ruka went to the right and Hotaru went to the left. They held up their hands and as they walked forward, and expectedly their hands met an end. After that, they made their paces horizontally like a crab, still touching the end spot with their hands. A few minutes later, Ruka stopped his activity when he found something.
"Imai, just like what you had said! I found it!" he claimed excitedly as he waved his hand at Hotaru. The amethyst-eyed girl then smirked and approached him.
Mikan, who was already finished with her problem, turned her face to her best friends with astonishment. "What are you guys doing?"
Hotaru's smirk grew wider, "Watch this."
Without further ado Hotaru walked towards Ruka and then her hand touched the pointed spot. When she found what she wanted, she grabbed it, turned it around, and lastly pulled it. Mikan's hazel eyes widened when she saw the view of the desert beside Hotaru cut off vertically into a kind of door shape. And when it was opened, it miraculously showed a long white hallway. "H-How could you?" surprised and shocked Mikan questioning the Blackmail Queen.
"Illusion alice," Hotaru answered briefly. "The desert was actually just a trick that used some illusion alice and its original form is just a regular room."
Mikan's mouth immediately formed a wide smile as she stood up and ran to hug Hotaru, her beloved friends, who had shown her geniuses, accuracy, initiatives, and also her quick applicability in an impressive way so that finally the three of them could escape the trap of the illusion alice. "You're amazingly awesome, Hotaru!"
"Hotaru, Ruka-pyon, come on, faster! I wanna find Natsuki as fast as we can! I'm afraid there would be something bad happened to him if we were coming late!" she said impatiently as they ran down the devious white-painted hallway, as if like a labyrinth with no end.
"Calm down, Sakura, don't be too hasty! Moreover, Natsume is there with him, isn't he?" said Ruka, who was trying to catch the running Mikan, leaving Hotaru at the back.
Mikan stopped, and then looked at Ruka while wrinkling her eyebrow. "What the heck are you talking about, Ruka? That time you also saw him kidnapped Natsuki, didn't you? Because of that... because of that... I ... I can't trust him!"
Then she ran. Ran away from the worried Ruka and also from Hotaru who just rolled her eyes. She rubbed her hazel eyes to hold back the tears that would soon flow. She was so sad, so angry, upset, and disappointed that she didn't notice what was in front of her, causing her to hit something, or more precisely, someone in the corner.
That someone, in fact, was a man.
Mikan would fall down if those muscular hands didn't hold her waist. "I-I'm sorry, I ..." her eyes widened when she saw a tall figure in front of his eyes. He was handsome, about 180 centimeters tall, had a muscular yet proportional body, was wearing a white shirt with two upper buttons left unbuttoned and also black trousers, had pale skin and a disheveled raven hair. But what was surprised her mostly was his piercing red eyes.
Natsume Hyuuga.
The tears, which had been detained, now started streaming down her blushing cheeks. "You ... you are Natsume, aren't you?" she asked as she lifted her sobbing face up. Seeing the man in front of her nodded slowly, she lowered her face as her hands began banging his waist.
"Give me my Natsuki back! Give him back!"
The man, with his widening crimson eyes, just looked at her with a complicated look. He was confused about what to do. Natsume, the man, was just trying to touch Mikan's shoulders with his both hands, but stopped in the middle of its way. "I am sorry." were the only words that came out of his mouth, in a hoarse man voice.
"Take your hands off Mikan's body!" Hotaru commanded firmly while holding her latest version of Baka-Gun towards Natsume. She glared at the fire caster sharply. Mikan then turned her body around to hug Hotaru tightly and crying at the Ice Queen's shoulder. While Ruka, who was standing beside the two of them, just stared at the man in front of him with a surprise look.
"Natsume?" Ruka asked to convince himself. "You're Natsume, aren't you? What is happening with your body...?"
Natsume just shrugged and nodded slowly.
"Why did you do it, Natsume? Why did you kidnap Natsuki?" Mikan questioned with a heavy tone as she had managed to calm herself from crying.
Now the four of them were sitting in the same corridor as before. Mikan, Hotaru, and Ruka were sitting side by side, while Natsume was sitting in front of them. The Black Cat just looked down at the white floor beneath him, as if the floor was the most interesting thing he had ever seen.
"..." Natsume answered her only with silence.
"I hate you, Natsume!"
"..."
Mikan just took a deep breath and shook her face before she made a glance at Hotaru with hopeful eyes. Her friend just merely shrugged her shoulders as she stared at him sharply.
"Where's Natsuki?"
"In the main hall of this building."
"This building? Actually, where are we?"
"One of the secret headquarters of the Dangerous Ability Class which placed outside the academy, precisely in the south of Tokyo."
The three of the listeners were widening their eyes. They honestly couldn't believe with the information they heard. The atmosphere around them became quiet until Hotaru destroyed it, "You mean, the school has something to do with the kidnapping?"
"Yes... and no."
It was now Ruka's turn to ask, "What the heck exactly happened?"
The fire caster then lifted his face up, "The people of the future who are after Natsuki slowly began to come into the present. They knew his mother's plan so that they sent a message to Persona and immediately ordered him to kidnap the baby."
"How did you—"
"What we have to do now is quickly go to the main hall to save him,"—Natsume cut Ruka's words off—"before those people from the future are coming."
"How long is the estimated time?" asked Hotaru flatly.
"If we're lucky, they will arrive in 30 minutes. If we're not, it will be 10 minutes left."
Their eyes grew wider before finally Mikan stood up from her seat and looked at her companions firmly. "Then, what are we waiting for? We must quickly save Natsuki before it's too late!" she shouted. Her two best friends then smiled and also got up to follow her.
She then glanced at Natsume, "I don't know why you're helping us, especially when it was you who kidnapped Natsuki. But… thank you!" she said quietly. She immediately hugged Hotaru's arm to hide her reddening face.
Natsume simply smiled before he finally followed Mikan and the others.
"The hallways are like a labyrinth because of its long, tortuous corridors. The main hall is right in the middle of the labyrinth—"
Hotaru just nodded and her amethyst eyes were narrowing to the back of the man in front of him. She then quietly took her Baka-Gun out. And that caused the brunette to look at her best friend with confusion plastered on her eyes.
"—I'll guide you all to the main hall. Approximately we'll get there in 15 minutes." the Black Cat just continued his words.
"What's wrong with you, Hotaru?" Mikan asked her best friend with a whisper. Ruka was also surprised when he observed the Ice Queen, who had been acting strangely.
"I don't really trust him." Hotaru replied in a whisper.
"Why?" it's now Ruka's turn to ask, in a low tone so that Natsume couldn't hear him. "Is it because Natsume's body is like an adult? Maybe, just maybe, it's because he also ate the Gulliver's Candy, isn't it?"
Hotaru then glared at her companions. "I don't remember ever lent him my Gulliver's Candy. There must be something he's hiding from us. If he himself didn't trust us, so why should we trust him?"
"I don't know but my feeling told me that he isn't Natsume." she continued.
"Ehh?" Mikan and Ruka shouted in unison, causing Natsume to turn around towards them in surprise. Then Hotaru shot her Baka-Gun twice and also glared at them both sharply.
"It's okay, they're just noisy." the Ice Queen clarified flatly.
Natsume just smirked, "Hn."
Seeing his reaction, the three of them were equally convinced that the person in front of them was indeed Natsume. Although Hotaru still had a sense of suspicion inside her mind. For some reason, half of her suspected that the man in front of her was not Natsume, but the other half believed that he was the real him. She couldn't understand why she could feel that way. And she swore that she would solve that problem when they had succeeded in rescuing Natsuki.
After a long walk, suddenly, the sound of explosion could be heard in their ears. Spontaneously, they stopped walking and alerting themselves. Hotaru recharged her own Baka-Gun's ammunition, while Natsume stretched his hand intending to protect the children behind him.
"What was that explosion sound?" Mikan asked anxiously.
Not long after that, then the second blast came again, shocking their ears.
"It seems from the main hall." Natsume replied flatly.
All of them then nodded and quickly ran to accelerate their steps towards the main hall, where the sounds of explosions came from. In less than 5 minutes, they finally reached the main hall's door which full-colored with white. At that time, they bowed down to inhale for a moment when suddenly the third explosion was heard again, clearer and louder than before. Making them wondered about what exactly happened behind that door.
Mikan finally made a step towards the door. Hotaru and Ruka prepared their alices in case if something unwanted happened to her. When Mikan's small fingers touched the doorknob, she immediately swallowed her own saliva and slowly opened the door.
Natsuki… mommy is coming to save you!
To be continued
Author's Note:Finally, I updated chapter 4! Yay! Honestly, I don't know why but recently I started thinking that the main characters here seemed mature. I wanna remind you that they're still 12 in this story, so don't ask why when I called them as children. And else, what bothering me so much is how did Mikan know about how to raise a baby? I found it very weird since I don't believe that a 12-year-old kid can take care of a baby without adults, moreover if the kid is as childish as Mikan. Maybe a woman's nature feeling helps her a lot, that's all what I could come out with.
Please do REVIEW and stay tuned for chapter 5! Thank you all.