The Ice Will Melt Some Day
Chapter Seven "Fighting for Death"
Disclaimer: Manga = not mine. Random characters you don't remember from the original manga? = mine.
Try, try again as he might. He couldn't concentrate on his test. There was something bugging him and it wasn't good. This was confirmed when the teacher waved around a note and walked it up to Daichi. "This is for you Hanahisaki," the teacher said simply.
He picked it up and was surprised at what it said. He asked his teacher, "Can I go now?" With a flick of the wrist, Daichi stood up and left the room, he headed towards the elementary school 's principal's office. "Why would that principal want to see me? I bet I failed this grade or something..." Entering the eerie room, he opened the door to see some people he never thought he'd see for a long time... Nobara and Natsume. Then there was Persona...
"Welcome Daichi-san..." the principal greeted monotonously. "Do you know why you're here today?"
"Uhh... no?" he said in a somewhat hopeful manner.
"You have the chance to experience the outside world and be with your beloved Ice Princess," the principal explained. Nobara blushed at the last statement and looked away. "You'll also be transferred into the Dangerous Ability Class and if you don't want to, you don't have to go to your regular curricular classes anymore either. How 'bout it Daichi-san? It sounds like a good deal to me."
He didn't hesistate to answer back, "For you, yes, it is a good deal. For me, no, my deal isn't as fail proof. The only cool thing about it is being able to hang around Nobara more, but the rest of the 'perks' aren't the greatest in a long run." Nobara sighed in relief, but her hopes were broken when Persona entered the discussion.
"You have the alice of equivalent exchange Hisaki. That's a dangerous alice within itself and you have no choice, but to join the Dangerous Ability Class. You remember Suberi Atsureki right? Even he made friction dangerous..." Persona persuaded.
Daichi glaced over the room and didn't see the said Friction boy. He asked, "Where is he anyways?"
With a solemn expression Nobara broke the news, "H-He's dead."
"What?" he asked in shock.
"Dead," she repeated, "he died yesterday..."
"White Day..." he remembered.
Stepping back into the point of the discussion, the principal cut into their conversation, "Since he's dead.... poor Nobara-san doesn't have a partner and now she'll have to do all the work by herself. Most of her missions regard illegal drug dealers and treacherous night jobs. It's going to be hard without her senpai Suberi there..."
Now he struggled to come up with an answer to the principal's offer. The boy glanced at Nobara for a decision and then examined the other students of the Dangerous Ability class. Their icy stares pierced through his physical self. "I'll do it," he resolved.
"No!" Nobara protested, but some students kept her mouth shut. She tried to get herself out of the binding, but he was heading towards the tundra wasteland that had frozen the classe's hearts a long time ago. She managed to free her mouth and shouted again, "Don't do it Daichi!"
He listened regretfully at Nobara's voice. Whispering under his breath a mournful sorry. "I'll do it," he confirmed with the principal.
"Stop! Daichi, don't! Daichi... no..." she trailed off. Her tears were taking control and she was horrified.
Natsume was observing her reaction and was slightly confused as to her reaction. "Why are you so sad? That guy is joining the Dangerous Ability class and now you get to see him just about everyday now."
"I-I don't want him to be in this class... He doesn't deserve to be in this class," she began. "I liked it when he was with everyone else. He- Daichi was much happier with Kage-san... Misaki-chan...Megane... everyone! Not here... he'll be trapped in the same damn place as us. He'll freeze and shatter one day... just l-like Suberi-senpai. I can't let that happen Hyuuga, I will not let it happen."
"Tch. What happened to his plan to get you out of this class? He obiously failed to complete that mission. So for breaking his promise, he deserves to be in this class," Natsume reasoned.
She glared at him, "This isn't hell Natsume. This class is a living hell. You can't understand how I feel about this whole situation. It's not like the one you love is being sucked into this darkness or anything!"
He hissed back, "Don't you dare think for a moment that I don't know how that feels. She... she's in that place because... of me."
"That's your problem Hyuuga! This is a whole 'nother one and won't let anyone I love be dragged into this place."
A hand came on her shoulder, and her body reacted fearfully. "I'm your new partner Nobara."
"Natsume you distracted me... y-you bastard!" Her personality was changing again, but slowly this time. She was prepared to attack the fire caster with a sphere of ice, but Daichi stopped her in time. Everyone else just watched as the quarrel between fire and ice got intense. Nobara gasped, all Daichi had to do was cover her hands with his and her alice was stopped. It wasn't because of some type of nullification or a complicated process involving equal exchange. It was simply a display of incredible will power and confidence.
The principal applauded the impromptu show. "You have a quite impressive class Persona. You must be careful to control your students though. At this rate they'll be dead sooner than you notice. You are all excused now." He turned and went into another room altogether.
Disdainfully Nobara whispered into Daichi's ears, "Why did you have to do that?"
"Because I'm getting you out of here." Her heart skipped a beat.
All the students went into the Dangerous Ability classroom and hung around waiting for Persona to give them their missions. "Have you seen your file yet?" Nobara asked curiously.
"No, but maybe I should..." Daichi shrugged. He walked over towards one of the many file cabinets and pulled out and file. Whence coming back, Nobara gaped at him.
"How did you know it was that cabinet? Have you been in here before?" The Dangerous Ability classroom was modified and organized differently than the other classrooms.
He thought about it and answered, "No... but it's more like Kawasejiri's soul is kind of guiding me... Like a long lost routine I guess."
"Oh... Kawasejiri... she... she was in the Dangerous Ability class?"
Nodding, he scanned through his file."Wow... they know just about everything about me huh? Reading about me is more fun than I thought."
"How come I've never heard of her all this time then?" she continued asking.
"Well, she never really needed to go on missions. It's more like she only had to be there when they needed her to do something extremely difficult," he explained. Just as he stood up to put away his file in the file cabinet, they heard a loud thump noise. "What was that?"
"I don't know, but we need to check it out," Nobara said concernedly. The two ran out of the room and found out the sound was coming from outside. "Hyuuga!"
Natsume was on the ground with new bruises, cuts and injuries that weren't there before. "What the hell happened to you? We just saw you an hour ago man!" Daichi scrambled towards the kid and examined the wounds.
The boy tried to push Daichi away, but he was too weak to do it. Thus, he fell on the ground, slightly unconscious. Nobara stepped up forward and said, "I think it was because he had so many missions this week and someone... Persona... was pressuring him to do more."
"It doesn't just have to be Persona. It can be that elementary school principal as well," Daichi speculated. Seeing a teacher pass by, Daichi called out to them.
The teacher ran over and asked, "What happened?" The he gasped, "Natsume? My student, haha... thanks so much you two. I'll take him to the infirmary." He had a European look and was slightly girlish, who else can it be but... Naru. As soon as he came, he left and the two middle schoolers were left slightly speechless.
Deciding to ignore the infamous teacher of the pheromones, they went back to the problem at hand. "These two... are overloading you guys with missions. You... Natsume and everyone else. We have to stop this!"
"There's nothing we can do about it. Persona... his alice is the alice of death. You saw how many alice restraints were put on him and that still isn't enough!"
"Tch... then we're leaving this academy for good," he said darkly, "That's the only way."
"That's ridiculous!" the ice princess protested. "No one has every gotten out of this academy besides from graduation. How... you can't, it's too dangerous."
"...and you're the one complaining Miss DA pawn?"
Nobara was quiet and continued, "Daichi, that's just not the wisest choice."
"Wisest choice my ass! We're leaving... and we're going now," he declared. Daichi grabbed her wrist forcefully and started walking towards the gates.
"You can't!" she resisted. "I mean, we can't! We'll both be chased after and it's not going to do any good!" Truthfully, it wouldn't have been hard to just freeze his feet to the ground, but Nobara didn't want to use her alice against him.
He was getting impatient and continued to drag her along even though he knew she wouldn't like it. "Please... don't make this harde-"
"No!" she screamed. "This is the only place I have left Daichi! I don't have a family last that I remember! There's no where for us to go without being suspected for doing something. You don't have any idea what it's like out there out of this academy! You haven't seen it like I have. I told him I would keep... you..." she struggled to find words that didn't already conflict with her previous ideas. "Just don't Daichi, don't..."
Someone suddenly dropped into their conversation. Daichi spun around to see Persona right behind Nobara. "Ah! Nobara he's behind you!" he pointed out.
She turned to see Persona as well and he caught her by her uniform. "You two weren't planning a honeymoon already were you?" The two were too shocked to say anything. "I must say, that's a daring decision for you Hanahisaki, expecially since you just joined the Dangerous Ability class. You shouldn't get to cocky and manipulate Nobara's mind like that."
"What are you talking about?" Daichi glared at Persona.
"I'm saying that you're taking control of little Nobara's mind. She doesn't have many friends you know? So you should stop taking advantage of her," he sneered.
She flushed, "N-No, that's not true."
"You, or should I mention the principal as well? You guys should stop taking advantage of students in the prime of their lives who are already shunned from the world. Stop using them to do your dirty work and maybe I'll back down."
"And you think I'll listen to you?" Persona stated.
Daichi smirked, "No... because you won't be able to listen, let alone hear what I have to say after I'm done with you!" Daichi dashed forward and knocked Nobara into the ground before she could do anything. Then he took ahold of Persona's hand while saying some few inaudible words. A bright light alit from the joined hands and Daichi stared at his hand, "It's working..."
Nobara's eyes widened, "What are you doing!?" She wanted to warned him, but she knew that he knew.
Persona activated his death alice and Daichi said, "Just what I wanted..." Persona couldn't move for some reason and was frozen.
"I'm frozen!" he said in shock. Persona knew that Nobara didn't have an opening to freeze him, so it could have only been Daichi. "How did yo-?"
"Let's say I traded Nobara for some of her alice. Say goodbye to this world Persona because in the world of equivalent exchange death pays for death. And you owe me big time when I 'took' your alice within me." Daichi was struggling to keep standing and fell on the ground with Persona.
The ice princess stood back up, but couldn't get near them. The light was shining brighter and bigger. "Daichi don't! You're taking too much in!" she cried.
In an instinct the light expanded incredulously and then died down soon after. Both were on the ground, barely alive.
Typer's Note -
I can't keep promises, but here's an update!
Finally... alright... that's it... enjoyeth maybe.