illutia mist: (Hugs the tree tightly) NOOOO!!

Jacklyn: (Pulls illutia by her waist) You freaky author!! You destroyed my sketchbook!!

illutia mist: I must do it!! That's the only way!!

Jacklyn: Only way? Only way your head! Now, let go off the tree and get your punishment!!

illutia mist: (Shakes her head) I WON'T! I WOOONNN'T!!

Jacklyn: (Pulls illutia harder) Let go off this thing, you freaky author!!

illutia mist: WOOONNN'T!!

Mikan: …Now, why that two are the one that making a show here?

Natsume: (Smirks) Great. Let them be.

Hotaru: …I also won't get money from this. Useless show…

-x-

Small Pieces of You

-x-

16th Piece: Decision

'Hmph! You're nothing compare to me, little girl!'

'You took him away from me!'

'You don't belong here!'

"Marika!"

A pair of turquoise eyes shot open when the owner felt something shaking her shoulder. The first thing that greeted the wavy-black haired girl's eyes after she was aware was a white flat surface, which was part of a thing named wall. She realized that she was just a few inches again from the wall before she hit her forehead on it.

She shook her head, shrugging off the voices in her head that tortured her a few seconds before. Turning her head to face her light-green haired friend, she said, "Sorry, Suzuka, what's wrong?"

Suzuka shook her head and looked at her in the eyes. "You suddenly spaced out just now. Something's wrong?"

Marika closed her eyes and fell silent for a while. After two seconds, she opened her eyes again and said, "Nothing. Something suddenly bothered my mind."

"Fine then," Suzuka said. "Don't get too much spacing out. I won't warn you again."

A smile managed to escape from the black wavy-haired girl's lips. "Okay. Don't worry."

Marika and her friend just went back from the old building where they encountered with Jacklyn. Their other members had gone on their way to do their own business at that time, leaving her and Suzuka wandering at the corridor.

But somehow, not long after the torturing lesson that they had given Jacklyn, Marika remembered something from her past.

A painful memory.

She disliked those feelings she felt at that time. If she could, she wanted to tear her heart away from her body, leaving no emotion in that vessel.

But she couldn't do that.

She still wanted to keep her feeling for a certain school's heart-throb, the famous fire caster, Natsume Hyuuga.

Anyway, if she tore her heart away, she would be dead, right?

Suzuka realized her spaced out friend's silence. She tapped her shoulder again. "Marika."

The ice alice girl looked at her. "What?"

Suzuka hesitated, but she asked anyway, "Don't you think you tortured her too much?"

Marika narrowed her eyes while thinking of an answer. "You think so?"

Suzuka pulled her hand back from the other's shoulder. "If you don't realize, she's bleeding badly."

'How's that, you sluttish girl?'

The wavy-black haired girl shook her head again, shrugging off the voice that suddenly rang inside her. She turned away from the wind alice girl. "That served her right," was her answer before she walked to she-knew-where.

-x-

"Mikan-chan!" Narumi called. The wavy-blonde haired teacher quickly went to the hospital with Yuu after the class representative told him what happened.

The brunette, who was waiting with the gang in the hospital, looked up to see the teacher approaching them. Her eyes widened in glad to see him at that time.

"Na-Narumi-sensei!" she called as she hugged her dear sensei, which made a certain fire caster felt annoyed and threw a glare at the gay teacher.

Narumi patted the brunette's head, trying to ease her worry. "I have heard what happened from Yuu. Is she alright?" he asked as he hugged her tight.

"The doctor just went in to examine her," Hotaru said calmly, replacing the shocked brunette to answer his question.

Narumi looked at Koko. Reading the teacher's mind, Koko shook his head and said, "I can't read her mind again, Sensei."

The answer of the mind reader drew the others' attentions. The animal pheromone alice lad braved himself to ask, "Whose mind?"

Koko looked at him. "Jacklyn-san," he replied. "I couldn't read her mind since Monday, just a few days ago."

Narumi grew quiet for a while, recalling the moment when he called the drawing alice user and asked her a few questions. "My alice also didn't affect her. I have tried it yesterday," he finally said, still hugging the trembling brunette.

"Maybe she has nullification alice like Mikan-chan," Nonoko guessed as she looked at the brunette.

All of them fell silent, thinking of the possibility that they had concluded just now.

"She didn't nullify my alice," the just-watching fire caster finally commented, drawing the others' attentions to him.

"She didn't?" Narumi asked, making sure that his ears were still working normally.

Natsume took a quick glance at him. "I won't repeat," he said nonchalantly as he looked away.

Just then, the doctor went out from the room. The blonder teacher approached him after he let go off the brunette in his arms. "How is she?" he asked, worried.

The doctor smiled at him, signaling that everything was just fine. "She just used up her energy. Maybe she used her alice too much. Don't worry. She'll be fine. She just needs some rest," he suggested.

Narumi heaved a relieved sigh at the result and muttered, "thank you."

Without he realized, Mikan had stood beside him and panicky asked, "But, Doctor, what about her uniform that has scratches and blood stains?"

The doctor held his own chin with his thumb and index finger and said, "Actually, I'm wondering about that too. But there's no wound on her body."

Nonoko walked to Mikan's side. "Can we see her now?" she asked with a bit hope that they could see their friend. Even after what Jacklyn had said to them before, all of them still considered her as their friend.

The doctor nodded and said, "But don't make any noisy sound in there. She needs some rest." After all of them nodded in agreement except for Natsume and Hotaru, he excused himself, leaving the gang and Narumi standing in front of the door.

Mikan reached for the doorknob and turned it slowly. As the door opened, they stepped in quietly, trying not to wake up a certain girl.

Inside the room, once again, they saw the same girl lying on the bed, sleeping peacefully. Her uniform had been changed into patient's white attire. They had ever visited her in one of rooms in the hospital before. The difference was just that the room wasn't dim like before. The window was let opened. A certain inventor realized this, but just kept silent.

The brunette went to the bedside, staring at the sleeping girl. She did nothing but just keep on staring at the girl. Of course, many questions filled her head at that time.

"What happened? Why didn't you tell us? We'll always be friends even though you say no." Those words came out from the mind reader's mouth that got a death glare from her in return.

'Read my mind again and I'll kill you!' she threatened in her thought. The mind reader sweat dropped and nodded. Who thought that the brunette could be so scary sometimes?

While all of them were too occupied with the girl and a certain raven-haired girl built her own hypothesis, the fire caster observed the bedside table. "Something is missing," he suddenly said, making all the heads in the room turn to him.

"What's missing?" Mikan asked as she tilted her head a little, curious.

"Sketchbook," he mentioned simply.

After hearing his simple answer, the brunette directly moved her gaze to the bedside table. And as the fire caster had said before, there was just Jacklyn's bag on it. Her sketchbook was nowhere to be found.

"You're right, Natsume," she said as she lifted the bag to see if the sketchbook was under the bag. But there was nothing on the table. "I wonder where it is."

"Maybe she didn't bring her sketchbook today," Nonoko said.

Mikan shook her head. "She brought it. I'm very certain about it. I saw her take her sketchbook this morning before lunch time," she said, convincing them. She grew quiet after that then continued, "But…when she told us not to come near her…she didn't have her sketchbook with her…"

They exchanged glances at each other for a few seconds, except for a certain inventor and fire caster who looked uninterested at all. "So, where did it go?" Yuu finally said out what they had in their minds.

"The last time we saw her was at lunchtime when we was about to go to the cafeteria," Hotaru started.

Mikan poked her own palm with her other hand that formed into a fist. "She said she had something to do and told me to go first to the cafeteria. And she agreed to catch up with me later," she said, recalling what happened at lunchtime.

"But she never came," Ruka continued.

"And when we met her at the corridor, she has already acted strange," Koko added.

Mikan looked at Jacklyn's bag, which was in her hands at that time. She already had an idea what happened exactly. 'Fan girls?' she thought. She heard someone gasp in the next second after she thought about that. The brunette lifted her head, just to see that everyone was looking at Koko. The mind reader covered his mouth with his hands as he looked at the brunette.

Mikan narrowed her eyes at him. 'What? You read my mind again?' Reading her question in her mind, the mind reader nodded slowly and gave her a 'sorry' look. Her eyes didn't move away Koko's when she thought again, 'Never mind. She has told me who kidnapped me before. It's the fan girls right?' The mind reader nodded again.

The others looked at them in confusion, wondering what they were doing. "Why did you nod your head, Koko?" Nonoko asked in wonder.

Koko looked at her with a weird smile. He knew he must make an excuse or Jacklyn's secret that she had entrusted to him would blow up. "Umm, my head is a little stiff," he said as he did some 'neck sport', earning a weird look from the others.

However, there were two peoples that were too smart to be fooled. Hotaru spotted Koko and Mikan exchanging glances a while ago, so she had guessed that Koko talked to Mikan in his mind.

The fire caster also realized that. He looked at the mind reader sharply. 'You're lying,' he said in his thought. Reading his mind, Koko nodded his head to Mikan, signaling the crimson-eyed boy to look at the brunette, which he obliged. Mikan gave him a 'you-know-what' look and Natsume stared at her in confusion. He didn't quite catch what the brunette meant.

Silence engulfed the room. All people had their own thought in their mind at that time. The fire caster kept looking at the brunette, trying to find out what she meant. The silence kept engulfing them, until…

BAM!

"MIKAN! WE HEARD THAT OUR 'A WEEK JUNIOR' GOT HURT!" a raven-haired lad's shout and the suddenly-barging-in act made all peoples in the room turned their head to the just-coming-guest.

WHACK!

"You're too loud, stupid!" a red-haired girl said as she rubbed her knuckle that she used to hit the lad.

As you had guessed, Tsubasa just barged into the room noisily and Misaki handled it by giving him a hit on the head. Well, it was them anyway.

The sudden ruckus made everyone, except Natsume and Hotaru, startled. Mikan even dropped Jacklyn's bag that she held in her hands because she was too surprised.

It's good that no one got a heart-attack because of that.

Realizing that she just dropped the bag, the brunette quickly knelt and was about to pick up the bag when she saw the bag was opened. The contents were scattering on the floor. Most of them were pieces of paper.

Narumi, who stood beside her, saw those pieces of paper too. He knelt on his left knee and asked, "What are those pieces?"

"I don't know," Mikan replied as she picked up a few pieces and examined it.

The others wondered what they were talking about while kneeling beside the bed. They decided to approach the two. What they saw when they approached was the brunette put down the stack of paper's pieces on the floor and she still looked into Jacklyn's bag for more pieces.

It took her a few minutes to bring out all pieces from inside her bag. When she had made sure that there was no piece left inside the bag, she shifted her gaze to the pieces of paper that she had placed on the floor. She put the bag beside her and started to put the pieces together. It was just like doing a puzzle.

By helping each other, except Natsume who was just watching the group busily putting the pieces together, they finally finished a shape. They looked closely at their finally-finished puzzle.

It's an empty paper.

"Empty. Nothing is on it, even a scribble," the animal prince commented.

Mikan took another pile of pieces and they did the other puzzle again. And this time, after they were busily engaged with it for a few minutes, there's a drawing on the paper.

The brunette observed it closely and mumbled, "I think I ever saw this drawing…"

It didn't take a long time to guess what it was. Natsume was the first person who realized what that was. "It's her sketchbook," he suddenly said, which made the others look at him once again.

"How do you know?" Mikan asked, curiosity engulfed her.

He locked his tantalizing crimson eyes with her affectionately hazel eyes. "Burnt mark," he replied simply. Wondering at his answer, Mikan and the others searched for the burnt mark that the fire caster said.

And they indeed found a familiar burnt mark on the corner of the paper.

The brunette focused her gaze to the pieces that hadn't been put together. Her hands moved smoothly along the scattered pieces and she found some pieces with the same burnt mark.

Same shapes. Same spots.

She picked a few of them and piled it. "It's indeed like some pages of something…" she mumbled.

She gazed at the pile of paper's pieces again. Her eyes spotted a thick one and she picked it up. As she touched the piece, she could feel that the piece was different than other. It's a bit thick and the kind was also different. She searched again and found some pieces that were different than the others. She separated them from the others and tried to put it together.

The rest were watching her putting the pieces together for the next ten minutes.

When it was done, Mikan's eyes widened for a bit, seeing something that she thought was familiar with her eyes. "…This is the same design with her sketchbook's cover…" she said. She flipped the pieces one by one, trying to form the design on the other side.

And what she saw next surprising her more than before.

There, she saw the message that was left by the now-sleeping girl's mother behind it. It was the same with what she had seen when the sketchbook was still in a whole form without any scratch.

Well, maybe a little burnt mark, for a certain fire caster had burnt it a little on the corner.

"This really is her sketchbook…" she said in shock. "…How could this happen?"

The older raven-haired lad got wondered. "Did she tear it by herself?" he asked.

Mikan shook her head. "She really took a good care of her sketchbook. She even smacked Natsume's head when he burnt it," she told them, which made a few of them giggle and sneer but they tried to hold it, except for Tsubasa who failed to hide his sneer. Natsume had an annoyed expression on his face when he remembered the incident.

Suddenly, the door opened again, revealing a black-haired man with glasses who immediately locked his eyes with Hotaru's. All peoples in the room looked at the two who were staring at each other. They thought they felt the temperature went down drastically when the two exchanged glances.

"What are you doing here?" Hotaru asked the man sharply.

"And what are you doing here?" the man retorted, not surprised at her sharp tone.

The blonde teacher, Narumi, approached the man. "Subaru, is there anything wrong?" he was surprised to see him there, considering that the man never showed his interest in a certain girls. And he never met her too.

Well, that was what the gay teacher thought. He didn't know that Subaru had met Jacklyn twice.

Subaru looked at Narumi and shook his head. "No. I have just been informed by a nurse that there's a shoulder-length black-haired girl that is being hospitalized," he said as he approached the sleeping Jacklyn. "I should have known that she wouldn't stand for a long time."

The sentence didn't pass just like a wind in Hotaru's ears. She heard each word clearly and could easily make out a conclusion.

Her brother had ever seen Jacklyn before.

"You have met her just now?" she asked, trying to get any confirmation from him.

Subaru looked at his stoic sister with his expressionless face too. "When the lunch time was almost over," he explained, "she carried a girl on her back. Both of them got scratches. For this now-sleeping girl, her right arm was hit by something that caused it to bleed quite badly."

Hotaru nodded in understanding. "Now I understand why there's no wound even though the uniform got scratches here and there," she said.

Mikan, being stupid, didn't catch what they were talking about and got curious. "Why is that?"

Hotaru threw her a 'stupid' glance, which Mikan wasn't aware of at all. "Stupid. This man healed her," she replied a little harshly. "You forgot that he has the healing alice."

The brunette's lips formed a small 'o', indicating that she had understood. "Oh, right," she said after as she scratched the back of her head, smiling sheepishly.

Hotaru let out a sigh then she looked back at her brother. "You said she carried a girl on her back. Where is she now?" she asked.

The healing alice user stared at her in silence for a few seconds before he answered, "I carried her to this hospital. Now, the girl is still resting in room 132. She has awoken though." He paused for a while as he looked at Jacklyn. "But this girl refused to go to the hospital. She said she had some business to do."

Mikan turned to face Hotaru. "Is it when she told me that we have never been friends?" she asked, though she felt a bit hurt when she said it.

The bearer of the Ice Queen title just shrugged. "Maybe yes," she said. "Let's visit the other girl. Maybe she has any clue about this."

-x-

"Anna?" Mikan asked in disbelief after she saw the girl that was occupying room 132.

The mentioned girl was sitting on her bed, reading a cooking book. Her eyes shone brightly when she saw the brunette and the others standing at the door. "Mikan-chan! Everyone!" she greeted them with her best smile.

Mikan quickly approached the pink wavy-haired girl and held her in her embrace tightly, as if they hadn't met in a long time, maybe years. Of course, this action of hers made the girl surprised. "Mi-Mikan-chan?" Anna called her in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Anna-chan! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" the brunette asked while hugging her tighter, making the girl need the air badly at that time.

"Mi…kan…chan…breath…" she stuttered. She could feel the dizziness started to fill her head.

BAKA!

The familiar sound that came from Hotaru's Baka Gun hit the brunette's head in the next second. She lay flatly on Anna's bed. "You'll kill her, stupid," the inventor said flatly.

"Ouch! Sorry, Anna!" the brunette said as she rubbed her sore head and got up from the bed.

Anna just smiled at her.

'What a stupid girl,' Natsume thought as he rolled his eyes.

"Anna, are you okay?" Nonoko asked as she approached the cooking alice girl. She was worried when Anna was gone at lunchtime, though she didn't show it on her face.

Anna nodded, still with her smile on her face. "Um…actually, I just slept," she said. "I suddenly felt sleepy when I just finished backing a cake. I was quite surprised when I found myself at hospital when I woke up."

Her statement made the rest think in silence, wondering what had happened during the lunchtime. "Don't you remember anything before you fell asleep?" Mikan asked.

"Mmm…" Anna was thinking hard, index finger on her chin.

"Too bad. She doesn't remember being hurt or anything, Sakura," the mind reader answered it for her. The others just stared at him, knowing that he just read Anna's mind.

Feeling the uncomfortable tension, Anna tilted her head in confusion and asked, "Is there anything wrong?"

At the cue, the class representative, Yuu, approached her and explained, "Imai's brother said that Jacklyn-san carried you and both of you got scratches, so he healed you and took you here by Jacklyn-san's request."

Upon hearing this, the pink-haired girl blinked twice. "You mean…I was attacked? Really? I have no idea about it," she said in surprise.

They exchanged glances again, finding that they had the entire clues except the biggest one. "So, the key is Jacklyn," Hotaru concluded, "but I bet she prefers to hide it than to say it out."

'Right,' the fire caster thought as he looked away.

-x-

It was so early in the next morning when the black-haired girl woke up. She opened her eyes slowly and turned her head to the window, seeing that it was still dark out there.

And she still felt so tired too…

She slowly moved her body to the sitting position. As she was in her sitting position, she stared at her lap and recalled what had happened before she lost her consciousness.

'You are weak, non-alice girl.'

'Such a fool.'

'You can't protect anyone, not even yourself and this pity friend of yours.'

The voices kept on ringing in her head, like a recorder that had been planned inside her. But she knew though. She realized.

'I'm weak…and fool…' she thought as she closed her eyes and held her head with her hands. 'I couldn't protect myself or my friend…'

'Now, you have realized it, huh? Non-alice girl?'

Jacklyn opened her eyes again and looked at the bedside table. She found her bag on it. She remembered the time when her sketchbook fell into pieces. The event kept on playing in her head, like it just happened an hour ago.

She stretched her hands and took her bag from the bedside table. She held her bag closely and the memory where her sketchbook was being torn into pieces was playing in her mind again.

'You can't help anyone, non-alice girl.'

'Why couldn't she be like Izu? Stop drawing and concentrate on her study?'

'She should be a good example for Izu.'

'She is no use at all.'

'…I'm useless…' she thought as her eyes lost its light, leaving the dark brown eyes in emptiness. She had heard that words many times.

She was no use.

She should be like this or that.

No one really looked into her…

Thought that she was just fine…

And she didn't talk about that either…

She was the one that keeping the secrets all to herself…

She wanted to show them that she could do all by herself…

Though she knew it was almost impossible.

Look at her now.

What good had come to her after what she had done?

Nothing.

It just proved her that she was a weakling.

Did she have something useful? …Even though just one?

'You have an useful alice. I can help you to improve it.'

Another voice suddenly rang in her head.

'I can train you so you can learn self-defense and use your alice against any attack.'

The other rang again in her head, bringing back the light to her eyes again.

'…And you can help your friends too.'

Jacklyn stared at her lap, still with her bag in her embrace. She remembered the voice and she thought about the offer that he had offered before. 'If I learn the self-defense and improve my alice, I can protect them,' she thought as she looked at her bag that contained the remnants of her sketchbook, as if she could see through inside her bag.

She lifted her right hand and pulled the attire's long sleeve down, showing the bracelet with silver-blue gem that circled her tiny wrist. She stared at the silver-blue gem, thinking twice before she decided and made it final.

'If you change your mind, kiss the gem.'

The words stayed in her mind while she just kept on staring at the gem for a quite long time.

Heaving a sigh, she finally brought her right hand closer to her face and placed a light kiss on the gem. A hologram screen appeared and the masked man with silver-blue hair showed up on the screen. A smile graced his face.

"I've been waiting for you, little angel," he said. "So have you already decided?"

Jacklyn nodded as her answer. She didn't feel like to talk at that time.

"You've changed your mind?" he asked again to make sure. It was the point of no turning back.

Jacklyn grew quiet for a while, hesitation started to show up in her heart. But in the next second, she nodded again, shrugging off the uncomfortable feeling.

She saw his smile widen at her agreement. "Then meet me next week, 11 pm, at the small building in the woods where the girls attacked you two days ago. I'll be waiting…little angel…" he told her before the screen disappeared.

Jacklyn had her eyes widened a bit when he talked about the fight that she got in the small building. 'He's there?' she thought in disbelief. The man had observed her all this time.

Creepy.

That was what she felt when she thought about it.

She had a suspicion that he was stalking her. Maybe he had even sneaked inside her room.

…

Oh well, she surely had to be more careful next time…and make sure that she would tackle him if she ever busted him in her room, stalking her.

Then she remembered about a certain brunette. Her beaming face appeared suddenly in her mind, bringing up the guilty feeling that she felt before when she broke their friendship.

'How will I act towards Mikan and the others now?' she thought as she sighed. 'I have no problem with the other classmates. But Mikan and the gang? I can't get too close to them because they're always with Natsume.' She touched her forehead, thinking hard. 'Not only breaking the friendship, I have to start from zero again.'

Jacklyn sighed again for the third time at that night while putting down her bag on her lap. She looked outside the window. The sky had started to change from dark color to dark-blue color. And in a few hours again, the sun would rise.

And that time would be a new page of her life in the Alice Academy.

--To be continued--

Jacklyn: (Still trying to pull illutia off from the tree) LET. GO. OFF. THE. TREE!

illutia mist: (Hugs tighter) Hell I won't!

Jacklyn: (Glares at illutia) You rock-headed author!

illutia mist: Whatever you say, I won't!

Jacklyn: (Lets illutia go and pants lightly) …Let me think…What should I do to you…?

Hotaru: Why don't you cut off her hands?

illutia mist: (Eyes bulge out) WHAT?!

Jacklyn: … (Smirks) …Nice idea…

Hotaru: Pay me a thousand rabbits for that.

Jacklyn: Deal. I'll go to get my wallet and see if there's a saw near here. (Walks away)

illutia mist: (Teary-eyes) Hotaru, you're mean!!

Hotaru: (Rolls her eyes) Money rules.

illutia mist: (Cries waterfall) You're a heartless person. Oh well, might as well say something before she comes back.

Hotaru: (Crosses her arms in front her chest) You better be.

illutia mist: (Sniffs) Good readers, thanks for reading this piece ne. Thanks for the reviews in the previous chapters…It means a lot to me…Please review again…AND I HOPE THIS IS NOT MY LAST WILL!! (Bursts into tears)

Hotaru: …She comes back.

illutia mist: (Mutters in submission) Oh dear…