SOOOOORRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE! I know that by now you're probably getting annoyed at my chapterly apologisations for being late, but I am! Especially to the people who have been waiting for another chapter (especially for that embarassment that is known as chapter 6). There's a bit of Natsume in this chapter, but there will be more in the next one.

Thank you to the brilliant reviewers:

amanda :)

bunnyjumps

Lady from Mars

shiki chama

XxMidnightPrincessxX

moonacre99

icily-COOL

Dedicated to all of the people who had to wait so long for me to update.

It will probably happen again, so expect a lot of dedications :)

Disclaimer: I own Gakuen Alice and all associated characters (bet you didn't expect that one :D)

Drowning out the Echoes

Chapter 7

Something Special

By the end of the day, Mikan was already getting used to the constant stares and scantily concealed whispers, but it was still an unpleasant experience. She suppressed a shiver as she remembered lunch. The food had been delicious, and the hall was amazing, but people kept on 'casually' walking past. The only thing that stopped some of them from 'accidentally' spilling their drinks on her was Hotaru's cold aura of menace. It made conversation nearly impossible, but Mikan was grateful. The best part; Mikan hadn't seen Natsume since the morning.

Someone, accidentally or not, roughly jostled Mikan as he rushed to class. Her books fell to the ground with a solid thump, loose paper flying up. Mikan swore under her breath. Curse this school. Curse Narumi for bringing her here. She reached for the nearest book, but someone beat her to it.

'So you're in the special abilities class.' He held out the book for Mikan.

'Yes' Mikan murmured, roughly gathering her notes, she would have to reorder them later, but for now she just wanted to get out of the corridor as soon as possible. 'Thank you for helping-' she stopped as she realized who she was talking to. His garnet eyes regarded her with a look that she didn't understand, or didn't want to understand. She quickly stood up, cradling her books to her chest as if they could shield her from the intensity of that look.

"H-Hyuuga-san, I-"

"Mikan." was all he said. As he held out one of her exercise books, Mikan's eyes flickered from his face to the books, before hurriedly grabbing the book as if he were poisonous.

"Thank you, Hyuuga-san, I really should be going now." She said, looking away from him. She could feel his eyes on her back as she retreated down the corridor, and it took all of her reason to restrain herself from running away from him and his eyes.

It was a good 10 minutes before Mikan managed to find her classroom. She'd wondered the corridors for what seemed like ages, wondering why the classroom numbers skipped from 451 to 453. When she had finally stopped herself to think, she'd noticed the small red button on the wall, where her classroom should have been. She paused, with her finger hovering over the button, before shrugging and pushing it. For a moment nothing happened, but then the stone wall opened up and rearranged itself into an ascending staircase.

Mikan could hear the faint strains of music and laughter floating down the stairs, and followed the sound. She gasped when she emerged, shocked at the sheer size of the room that vaguely resembled an oversized attic. Above her, heavy wooden beams crisscrossed throughout the giant space, joined by ladders and rope bridges, some laden with chattering students, others with blue, grey pigeons. Mikan could see that the music was coming from a brass gramophone in the nearest corner, and a few students were fighting over the next song. Sunlight streamed in through patches in the roof lighting up the chaotic scene.

She probably would have just stood in shock if voice had not jolted her out of her reverie.

'Shut up guys, it's the new girl!' at once everyone dropped what they were doing and shouted out

"WELCOME TO THE SPECIAL ABILITIES CLASS!" Mikan cringed internally; everybody had started at different times, and it all mushed together into an almost unintelligible shout. But she couldn't help but smile, it was clear that they had put a lot of thought into the welcome party. There was even a banner proclaiming 'Welcome to the class Mikan'. For the first time in what seemed to be years, she relaxed. Everywhere she turned she could see smiling faces and laughing people. A boy with hair a shocking shade of navy blue and a star tattooed under his eye walked over.

'Don't mind this bunch of idiots, we're just excited to have another special type. By the way, I'm Tsubasa, a single star student and proud of it!' he said grinning. A girl with pink hair grabbed his ear and started to twist it.

'Being a single star is nothing to be proud of, you're not even good enough to be a double star student!' then, ignoring Tsubasa's pitiful cries of pain, turned to Mikan.

"Hello, I'm Misaki Harada, an upper student like you. I've got the doppelganger Alice.'

'Oh yeah, Mikan, what Alice do you have?' Tsubasa had finally managed to free himself from Misaki's grip. Mikan froze. What Alice did she have?

"Ummm...I don't know." Misaki looked at her, puzzled.

"Didn't the principal tell you what Alice you had?"

"No...Maybe I just don't have one." Misaki shook his head at that.

"Impossible, only those with an Alice of the special ability type would have been able to find this room, and anyways, you wouldn't have been let in to the academy without one. Maybe he just forgot to tell you." Mikan nodded slowly.

"It'll be a surprise, I guess."

"Hey Mikan," Tsubasa was massaging his left ear. "Is it true that you're Narumi's daughter? We all though he was, you know, not that interested in women."

"Huh? Mikan's Narumi's daughter?"

"Not exactly, he adopted me because he knew my mum." explained Mikan.

"Well, that explains it. You look nothing like him." sighed Tsubasa. Misaki looked annoyed at him.

"How is it that you knew before I did?" She demanded.

"Come on, everyone's gossiping about her, especially since Na-" he was cut off as Misaki whacked him on the head.

"We agreed not to say anything!" She hissed at the now disorientated boy. Mikan just looked on, puzzled.

After Mikan had been introduced to the entire class they sat on one of the larger wooden beams, eating ice cream kept cold by someone with a weather Alice.

"Where exactly is this?" questioned Mikan, "It's weird, how does a room this big fit into the building when it's around the same size as the building itself?" The students surrounding her grinned.

"That's because we're in the roof. Years back I think there was a dimensional bender. He changed the space so that our room would lead to the roof, even though the roof is actually about 5 levels up. The only other way to get here is by teleporting."

"The best part is that if anyone who's Alice isn't special type passes by, all they'll see is a normal classroom filled with disciplined, studious children, working their little brains out. Of course, if they'd looked properly, they would've noticed that all of those children were students from about 20 years ago." Tsubasa explained, grinning.

"There're dimensional benders?" gasped Mikan, amazed.

"Yup, our teacher, Nodacchi, is one; a time-traveller. The reason why he isn't here is because he's always getting lost in other times. Not that we mind, it means that we can do whatever we like."

"It's awesome, all of the other classes look down on us, thinking that we're just a simple class. Too small to matter much, shoved into a tiny little classroom while everyone else gets rooms 10 times larger. They don't realize that we have the best hangout in the whole school." Mikan looked around and had to agree. Even though it was so large, it had a certain homely softness to it. The special ability class had managed to steal a few old arm chairs from one of the sitting rooms, and had strung up hammocks between beams. A group of younger students took turns jumping from one of the lowest beams (and even them it was a good 4 metres high) onto a giant hay stack, shrieking in joy. The gentle cooing of pigeons filled the air and the soft evening light filtered through the holes in the roof.

"If only I could sleep here." mused Mikan.

"You wouldn't want to. You'd probably end up covered in pigeon shit if you tried." Mikan laughed, but still felt that she never wanted to leave the place. The past few days had been some sort of nightmare, leaving her orphanage and seeing Natsume again. She couldn't deal with Natsume. Why had he left when he knew how lonely she would be? When he'd promised that they'd be together forever. What was the point in caring about someone if when they left, you felt worse than you did before you met them? Her mother and Natsume, they had both left her.

"Hey, are you all right, Mikan?" asked Misaki, concern in her eyes

"Yup." But she was quiet for the rest of the day, and when she finally closed her eyes to sleep in her unit, her mind was still wide awake.

How was it? Good, bad? Please review :)

Disdisclaimer: I disclaim my previous disclaimer. I don't own Gakuen Alice or the associated characters.