Sorry guys, another short chapter. I swear the chapter tomorrow will be longer. Well, hope you like it.

03/25/10: Rewritten/Edited

Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.

It had been three months. Three months without a sign of her. Three months without as much as a lead. The cultural festival had come and gone, and summer had turned to fall, yet still, she was nowhere to be found. Natsume made his way back onto the schools grounds, exhausted, angry, and feeling lost. He knew, of course, why it had been so easy for him to sneak off the campus for these last three months. Usually, unless he was on a mission, he would have had to fight to get a glimpse of the outside, but these last three months, it had been a simple matter for him to get out. Understanding the reason just made his blood boil. The elementary school principal was taunting him, confident in the fact that Natsume would never be able to find Mikan.

As he made his way back to the dorms, feeling defeated and alone, he couldn't help but recall that awful night. They had all waited so long for her to come back. Finally, Natsume volunteered to go check on her. He fully expected to find her crying in the bathroom. He had knocked numerous times, without an answer, so he had let himself in, assuming she was too upset to respond. He had half expected her to start yelling at him for coming into the girls' bathroom.

But she wasn't there. He began searching the other rooms, sure she was delaying her return, unsure how to deal with the decisions that had to be made. But there was no sign of her anywhere. At this point, panic had begun to set in. He reassured himself, calmed himself, saying surely she had returned to the office with the others while he had been looking for her. He nearly darted back to the room. But when he opened the door to rejoin the others, his heart sank, grew cold, as he realized she was still not there.

That was when he had told the others that she was missing. They had quickly begun a search for her, looking everywhere. Natsume wondered if she had tried to run away on her own, and the thought terrified him. Worse than that, the possibility that she had been captured snuck into his mind. But he didn't want to believe that. She had to be somewhere. She would just reappear and apologize for worrying everyone.

They may never have found out what happened to Mikan if it hadn't been for Ruka's Alice. An owl that had been sitting in a tree a ways off said that he had seen Mikan standing out on the balcony. Then he saw someone else appear on the balcony and grab her. At that point, the owl had noticed dinner scurrying by on the ground below and had seen nothing else.

As the story was revealed, Natsume's heart had clenched in dread. The exact thing that he had most feared happening to her, had happened. Exactly what they had all been trying to prevent had come about, and right under their noses at that. And he was too late to save her.

Everyone had been searching for her franticly since then. But they didn't even have the faintest clue where to look. Trying to find her was like searching for a needle in a haystack, and Natsume felt as though he'd done almost nothing but mindless wandering trying to find her.

Things had been strange since her disappearance. Natsume had not been given a single mission since then. In fact, the entire dangerous abilities class had been practically inactive, though he had noticed, with a sinking feeling, that Rui was frequently absent and no one had actually seen the Elementary School Principal since her disappearance. He was missing even at the Cultural Festival. No one wanted to speculate why, though they all suspected the truth inside. Nobara and Hayate had also seen no repercussions for their actions in assisting Mikan and Hotaru. But the most telling event had come about one month after Mikan's disappearance. Youichi – who had been reinstated into the dangerous abilities class after Natsume's foolhardy attempt to blow up the school building – and Tsubasa had been transferred out of the dangerous abilities class back to the latent and special abilities classes respectively. Natsume and the others had understood why with dreadful clarity. Whatever Principal Kuonji wanted from Mikan, he was getting.

Natsume made it back into his room and collapsed on the bed, broken and weary. He was horrified to think what they might be doing to her. He understood them and the way their twisted minds worked far too well. Would he ever see her again? He was quite certain she was still alive. She was too valuable to them for them to kill her. But what were they doing to her? How was she withstanding it?

He curled up in a ball on his bed, coughing violently into his hand. His entire body hurt; he felt exhausted to his very core.

"Mikan…Mikan…oh Mikan, I'm so sorry. Please be alright. Please come back to me."

He called out to her, looking out the window from his bed, wondering if she knew he was looking for her, if she knew he was worried about her. Slowly, his eyes drifted closed, and he sunk into a restless sleep, full of nightmares. In his mind, in his dreams, he kept seeing her, calling out to him, begging him to save her, yet he could never reach her. Mikan, where are you?

Across the campus, Principal Yukihara sat at his desk, his hands in his head. His heart felt so heavy. Why do I always fail to protect those close to me? Why can't I even keep my own flesh and blood safe? Oh, Izumi, forgive me. If nothing else, I wanted to keep her away from this, since I couldn't save you. That girl, who is so much like you…I wanted to make sure that she never fell to your fate. But what can I do now, brother? Why are children fighting my…our battles? They consider me like a god on this campus, yet I feel more powerless than a child. I am more powerless than a child.

Yuka sat near Hī-sama in the Hanahime Den, while Shiki leaned against the wall a few feet away. She was such a failure as a mother. She had abandoned her child as an infant to protect her from the same fate she'd had, yet despite that, Mikan was now soundly in the elementary school principal's clutches. She felt nauseous, thinking of that foul man's hands on her daughter. Perhaps she had been too merciful before. Maybe she should have ended it then, when she had the chance. Principal Kuonji's conspicuous absence only confirmed what they all dreaded. And now he would be more cautious than ever. How would they ever have such an opportunity again? Narumi had told her to have faith in Mikan. That she'd find something to do, that she'd be strong, that she wouldn't break as Yuka and he both almost had. But she was too aware of the reality to have much hope.

Not far away, in the Middle School Dorms, Tsubasa lay awake in his bed staring at the ceiling. He loathed himself, his very existence, since he'd been transferred back to the special abilities class. That he was used as leverage against Mikan made his blood boil. At first, he had wanted nothing more than to tear into Principal Kuonji's office and raise all hell, but Misaki and Tono both had held him back, quite literally, until he'd seen reason. If she had sacrificed for his freedom, then he would have to use it to the best of his abilities to find a way to restore hers. These last couple months he had searched high and low for a way to bring down the Elementary School Principal and his clones once and for all. He had to be stealthy, so as not to raise suspicion, which slowed his progress. But little by little he looked, and documented anything that could be even the slightest hint. His teacher's would surely say if he ever put so much effort into his grades he'd be one of the top students in his class. Regardless, he felt like he had accomplished nothing. Useless and a burden. That's what you are. I wonder if this is something like what Bear feels like…like his very existence sucks the life from who he cares about…

On this bleak night, a young girl with empty eyes and a seemingly insurmountable goal, returned to the school she had called home for the last year. Self-consciously, she reached up and pulled her sleeve down to hide the mark there. Steeling herself for the days ahead, she walked away from the three men she felt certain would never leave her nightmares, and made her way towards her new room.

KK, there it is. R&R.