Prison Love
By: illgiveyouparadise
Hey guys. I'm so, so sorry for the late update. I had been super busy this week so I had to squeeze out my free time to finish chapter. Plus, I keep editing and changing it.
I don't really like this chapter, so I look forward to reading your reviews! Let me know what you think and maybe I'll improve it!
Responses to your reviews:
Aka Chibi-Chan: Thanks for your review and I hope you like this chapter too! Tell me what you think!
Emrriz Mei: Haha, yes, I'm going to add a bit of fluff in it, but I think it's gonna be in later chapters, so please bear with me!
FrostyAsian: Thanks for the comment! I hope this chapter won't disappoint you. I've been trying to get this right, so... tell me what you think!
Lance58: Yup, you're right! Anyway, read on and please enjoy!
StephyGrock3107: Yes, that is totally understandable. English is not my mother tongue too, and I always tend to make silly mistakes, so don't be embarrassed. And to your question, I hope this chapter will be able to give you some clue!
BunnyxGirl, Kris-tim-chan, rezinpiece, megamar, guest: Thank you for your reviews! And I know you guys like fast updates. I mean, let's face it. Who likes to wait for a whole week just for a chapter? But then, I want to apologize for the late update. I've been really busy this week so I actually had trouble thinking the chapter over and conjuring the whole thing up, hence, I'm not quite satisfied with it. So, please write me some reviews to tell me what you guys think!
Heartbreak3r: Thanks for all your review on each chapter! Truly, it is very much appreciated because it lets me know what some of my readers are thinking. Thanks again and I hope you'll like this chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own MGLN!
Chapter 5
Nanoha stared anxiously at the scene unfolding before her.
They were assembled on a platform that was parallel to the formidable training grounds, getting a clear view of the strenuous challenges that awaited its next entrant despite the gathering grey in the sky.
Beside her, the group of new recruits for the army shuffled around restlessly, murmurs of excitement growing louder and louder to her ears. It was almost like the buzzing sound that bees would emit when they flew in a bunch, the annoying racket giving her a headache.
She could see that the trainees were eager to witness the punishment of another, but Nanoha couldn't find it in herself to do so too.
Her heart felt heavy as she watched a blonde walk up to the starting line, her guilt-ridden eyes following his every movement.
Why was he doing this?
He had gotten her more and more confused. One minute he was acting all caring and familiar, and the next, he would be cold and distant. However, that didn't seem to stop him from playing the role of Prince Charming, so what exactly was going through that unfathomable mind of his?
She had never met someone as complex and as difficult as Fate in her life. He was hot and cold. He was a masked intruder in her peaceful life. He was her rescuer, and he was the reason for all this disarray.
She sighed and her eyelids fell, remembering what happened this very morning…
A breeze caressed her cheeks and Nanoha's eyes flew open. She shot up like a rocket, the white blanket falling onto her lap.
Where was she?
Blinking rapidly, her vision gradually adjusted to the dingy room and she recognized her cramped environment immediately.
Oh right, she was at the training camp.
It was only the second day away from her family, and she was already feeling homesick. Pulling the covers away, an image of a certain blonde flashed in her mind.
The events from yesterday came flooding back into her memories.
The two males, the oath, the table, the first-aid box…
She raised her hand and inspected it after loosening the bandages. It was a whole lot better now. The previous swelling had shrunk to just a purplish blotch on the area around her knuckles.
Sighing in relief at the fast recovery, the sound of a door unlocking drew her gaze to the dripping wet figure walking towards her, and she squinted her eyes him, the dim rays of light attempting to shroud his appearance.
Fate was already in his training uniform, and the signature green button-up shirt, black belt, long trousers with the end bound by a pair of boots, seemed to only enhance the red in his eyes that slightly glowed in the dark.
His damp hair was untied, making him look like a girl, and half of his shirt was already wet, clinging onto him like a body suit.
He was toweling his hair and being totally casual, and while Nanoha stared, she willed her heart to keep its normal pace.
What exactly happened after she fell asleep yesterday?
As far as she knew, she had ended up sleeping on his bed and using his blankets.
'So where did you sleep yesterday?' she asked abruptly.
'Floor,' the blonde replied easily.
Nanoha's eyes bulged. 'Why didn't you sleep on my bed?'
'… I didn't want to.'
'As if that's a reply,' she muttered under her breath.
She glanced at her watch, and pressed a button, the digital words blinking innocently at her. 'Ten minutes to five?' she screeched. 'Roll call is at five!'
She left the bed in a rush and ran into the toilet. Brushing her teeth while her other hand cleansed her face with a towel, she heard the buzzing sound of a hairdryer going off.
After the hectic fumbling, she was back in the room in a flash. Spotting her uniform lying on the table, she skipped over to it.
Taking off her wrinkled t-shirt, a strangled noise froze her hand in midair that clutched the hem of her garment.
The gears in her brain jammed and screeched to an unexpected stop, and she turned her head to the blonde who stood before the door.
Time seemed to solidify in the hourglass, the sand freezing in its motion. The only sound that she could hear was the pounding of her heart beating painfully against her eardrums.
She had forgotten about her roommate, who was a boy no less. He had shock written all over his face, an expression that she had yet to see.
The blonde's face morphed into being troubled, and he directed his gaze to the right, a light blush blooming on his usually pale cheeks.
'I'll, um, wait outside,' he said, breaking the impending silence.
Reality snapped back into place and her eyes widened, the gears resuming its work twice its normal pace-
She released the hem of her shirt, had rushed forward and reached out for the blonde. Pulling him away from the door, she slammed it shut and laid her back against it, successfully preventing her roommate from escaping.
'W-wait,' she huffed, 'I can explain this!'
Fate stared at her skeptically, his eyes penetrating through her. He drew his lips into a grim line.
'Who are you?'
His voice no longer contained the familiarity that he had spoken with earlier. His voice was back to its original monotonous intonation, addressing her like a stranger would.
Feeling hurt, Nanoha gulped nervously and adverted her eyes, the floor tiles catching her interest.
'I'm…Uh…I-I'm h-his sis… sister,' she stuttered.
Silence.
She peeked under her eyelashes for his reaction.
The blonde was giving her a disbelieving look with a perfect eyebrow raised.
'N-nanoha. I'm Nanoha Takamachi. Kyoya is my brother, and…due to some family reasons, I came here instead of him,' she struggled to explain.
Bowing at ninety degrees, she begged him, 'please keep this a secret! I… I'll do anything you want, so please keep it a secret!'
Her roommate paused, 'whatever I want? Then will you give me something in return?' he asked bluntly.
Nanoha's mouth dropped, and she straightened her back, glaring defiantly at the blonde.
'Give? In return?' she said, flabbergasted.
The blonde waited impatiently for her answer.
She sighed and rubbed her temples, searching for an answer in her jumbled mind.
'My… my friendship' she replied after giving it a thought.
He grew rigid. 'Friendship?' he asked in a low voice.
'Yes, my friendship. You seem like you need a friend,' she pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest.
He regarded her coldly before shaking his head, his ponytail swinging from left to right. 'Forget it, I don't need it.'
He walked to his bed and sat down.
'Wait, does that mean you're going to keep it a secret?' Nanoha asked hopefully.
His burgundy eyes bored into hers.
'Yes, but with one condition,' he said.
'What condition?' she challenged.
'That you stay away from me, permanently,' he told her.
Without comprehending why, fury boiled inside her, threatening to blow over the top.
'Pardon?'
She tried to keep her emotions under control. Who was he to tell her to stay away anyways?
'Stay. Away. From. Me,' the blonde said again, pronouncing each syllable with underlying malice.
'And I heard you the first time,' she growled. 'Did you forget that you were the one who stuck your nose into my business? No one told you to save me from Jail, or feed me my dinner for that matter! I didn't ask to be saved!' she yelled and stormed towards the blonde.
'And now you tell me to stay away? May I remind you that it was all your own doing! Your decision! It's not like I imposed on you on purpose! Don't make it sound like I did!' she said indignantly, her tone rising higher and higher with every step she took.
Fate stared at her with his expressionless gaze, and his stoic mask slipping back on.
'I will apologize then,' he said acidly and stood up, towering over her.
'It seems that I have imposed on you instead, Miss Takamachi. I will take my leave now.'
With that said, he stalked around her without even sparing her a glance.
The shock from what she just said finally settled in after a few seconds, and her face contorted into one painted with horror.
Oh why did she say that? Fate had been nothing but kind towards her, and although he was being rude and demanding, she had the nerves to scream all those hurtful words to him.
She should be ashamed of herself. There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world, so Fate absolutely had the right to demand something from her, and she understood that too, but… she didn't want to stay away from him.
She felt like a moth attracted to the flame, and that flickering blaze was Fate.
She didn't want to leave him alone. There was so much to him that she wanted to unwrap, but it was impossible now. Just when she thought she was making some progress, she had had to go and ruin it. She was back to step one, and she wasn't sure if she could ever make it to step two again.
She wouldn't be surprised if he's cursing her now.
In fact, she felt like cursing herself.
Her family would be so disappointed in her if they knew what had happened.
Turning around helplessly, she yelped, 'wait! Fate, wait!'
The blonde paused in front of the door, keeping his back to her.
She didn't wait for a reply. 'I'm…I'm so sorry! I didn't mean that! I really didn't! I-I just wanted to tell you that, I'm not going to stay away from you because you ask me to!'
'You're my friend here! No matter if you want to be or not! And the only thing that I can give you is my friendship! Please understand that!' she pleaded.
She took a step towards him.
'I don't care if you expose my secret,' she told him. 'But I care if you're angry at me, be… because I'm really thankful for everything you've done for me. I-'
The door banged shut, cutting off her sentence. Her shoulders slumped, and she let out a sigh of defeat.
Unbeknownst to her, the hour hand had stroke five, and by the time she arrived at the canteen, Jail Scaglietti was ready to slaughter her, his face red and nostrils flaring to complete the picture.
'Well, well, what do we have here?' his mouth slated into an ugly smirk. 'Perhaps someone being LATE?' he said, roaring the last part at her while she shrank away from his spewing saliva.
'I thought I had made it clear that I want NO tardiness! And what do I get on the first day of training? Irresponsible trainees!' he thundered to himself, 'why is fate so cruel? First I have to endure this insulting pose that don't even deserve me and second, you mutts-'
'Sir if you will allow me to explain,' a sharp voice interrupted.
A dozen of heads swung around to the back, and they parted ways to create a straight view for their commander.
The weight on Nanoha's shoulder increased twentyfold when her gaze landed on Fate.
Was he out to expose her secret? Was he…
Jail eyed her roommate like a hawk did to its prey. He glanced at his attendance list.
'Fate, I suppose,' he drawls out. 'Did anyone ever teach you to NOT interrupt when one is speaking?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Very well then, I will let this slide for once. Explain now,' he ordered, and the blonde took his cue.
'I was the one responsible for Takamachi's poor punctuality. I will, in return, accept the consequence.'
'What?' Nanoha exclaimed. 'That's not tru-'
The blonde's glare shut her up, and she crossed her arms over her chest, fuming silently to herself.
What the hell was he thinking? Did he expect her to just stay quiet and let him take the blame? What did he want from her?
'Oh, is that so? Then folks, take this as a warning! We will now go to the EXTRA hard training grounds, and let's see if you can save that little life of yours,' Jail smirked. 'Expect some bloodshed, folks!'
And hence, here they were now.
She couldn't do anything to change their commander's mind. He had dismissed her arguing as annoying pesters, telling him to just worry about being pretty.
She rolled her eyes at that.
Needless to say, she was worrying her guts out and her accumulating anger was only making things worse. Even Vice and Chrono had been smart enough to stay away from her when they sensed her sizzling aura that was ready to burn.
Did Fate see the training grounds? It was brutal and crazy. No one would ever be able to survive that!
A shrill bell resonated in the air, signaling the start of the blonde's punishment, and Nanoha opened her eyes just in time to see her roommate running to his first challenge.
Even at a far distance, the spikes stuck on the maze of closely packed plants gleamed wickedly under the weak sunlight. The blonde's task was to crawl through them to cross to the other side and go onto her next course, that's if, if he came out alive.
The tangled mess of green was almost impossible to pass by unscathed, and even if he succeeded, there was no way he would survive the swinging axes that burned with intense heat.
She watched with her fingers crossed when Fate lowered himself to the ground, moving forward by using his arms to act as the motor.
She wasn't sure how he made it through. All she knew was that he kept wriggling into weird poses to get by the spikes, but every now and often, he would get careless and the slashes made would leave tiny red trails on the ground.
When he finally reached the other side, his uniform was already tattered into only scraps of cloth hanging on his skin, stains of blood becoming dark purple blotches on the green garment.
'Ha! The kid's going down.' Beside her, a middle-aged man snickered to his friend.
'Man, he's already exhausted! Talk about bad stamina. Even I could do better that. There's no chance for him to live, one wrong move and chop, chop, chop! Spiked by the axes!' the friend gossiped, his hand gesturing the action along with his speech.
As if he can really do better than that, Nanoha thought, irritated at what the men had spoke.
Turning her attention back to Fate, the blonde paused in front of the next challenge, as if deciphering about what to do.
The iron glowed orange under the malicious heat, and she clenched her jaw, waiting for the worse outcome.
What would it be? Punched into the air by the axes? Spiked through? Or skin and innards burnt alike?
Her roommate backed up before dashing forward.
Just as the first pair of axes met at their lowest point, Fate dived forward.
One down, two to go.
As his hand touched the ground, he rolled into a ball and passed the opening of the next pair of axes, the flames barely missing him as they crossed each other again.
But time was precious. Bouncing up like a bunny, he narrowly escaped the last pair, the heat searing the end of his trousers.
Everyone's mouth was agape as they stared at the blonde, and the two who had just looked down upon him had the worst awakening-the blonde was the real deal. He was no joke, and he might just manage to come out alive, although bloody and tired, but still alive.
The next challenge was for her roommate to swim across the 100 meter deep pool of salt water.
Nanoha grimaced.
Just how agonizing would that be - with all the cuts and slashes, swimming in a pool full of salt water while trying not to drown would be like rotting in hell's fire. No, it was even worse than that. At least you didn't need to worry about choking for oxygen because you lack it. At least your whole body wouldn't feel like it was being poked with thousands of needles.
She cringed when Fate jumped into the pool without a second thought, the goose bumps rising on her skin. The blonde surfaced and gasped for air.
Still, slowly, he continued to paddle through the water, picking up his pace with every stoke he took.
When he finally pulled himself out of the pool, the water dripping onto the ground was mixed with fresh blood that gushed non-stop from his wounds.
Her heart tightened at the sight.
Fate proceeded to the final challenge, albeit staggering slightly. His front bangs covered his eyes, and he seemed to be having trouble from staying awake. He climbed up the flight of stairs weakly, and when he was at the top, he raised his shaking hands to grip the rough rope hanging above him.
'Heh, now he's really dead meat,' the man beside her snickered again.
Nanoha felt like slapping him and telling him to shut up.
But then, that would attract attention and she would have to explain why she did that. She would try to explain that it was because Fate was her friend (at least roommate), and she had felt insulted for Fate when she heard what the man said.
But that was just an excuse. The truth was, she didn't want to admit what the man said was probably right-
How could Fate, worn out and tired, not to mention bruised and bloodied, be able to reach the other side hanging in midair on a rope without falling?
And if he fell, it would be straight through the spikes below.
Nanoha snorted. The people who built the training grounds must love using spikes to torture them.
She let out a sigh. Focus, she scolded herself. She didn't want to watch her roommate suffer anymore while she did nothing but stand and look at the sidelines. It wasn't like it was his fault that she had arrived late, but he took the punishment in her place instead. And now, look at his state and look at hers! It should be her who's about to die. It should be her whose body is imbrued. It should be her who deserved this.
It wasn't Fate, it would never be him. And yet, he had muddled with her destiny and accepted her harsh reality upon himself. How cruel fate is indeed.
Meanwhile, the blonde lifted himself up and placed his left hand in front of his right. He felt his muscles stretch along with his wounds, tearing the flesh further apart.
He winced.
The salt water had stung his whole body to the point that it became numb and almost robotic-like as he plowed across the pool. But now, as he hanged on for his dear life, he felt his tendons suddenly knocked up and functioning again, causing him to grit his teeth with every move he made. They wailed for him to stop, they begged him to let go, but he turned a blind eye to their pleas.
Halfway across, he decided to change his strategy. Instead of swinging himself forward, he slid his quivering hands bit by bit to the front. It was a slow process, and he tried not to look down.
For heaven's sake, he wasn't even a 'he'! Sure, she did a great job in concealing that fact, but if she died, the veils she created to hide her bust would drop and everybody would know that he's in fact a 'she'… Just like her roommate.
At the thought of the brunette with bright cerulean eyes, a wave of energy coursed through her body, and her grip on the rope tightened.
Actually, she had suspected that Kyoya, no, Nanoha was a girl ever since she had secretly scrutinized her roommate when they first met. She had found it hard to believe that the tender and soft features would be of a boy's, and her height was another problem.
Fate was six feet tall, which was an average height for most males. However, Nanoha was about one head shorter than her, standing at, she assumed, five feet six. That height was considered short for a fully grown male, so she wasn't surprised at all to see the brunette's chest bound by white cloth this very morning. It just confirmed her suspicions.
But then, there were the complications.
She knew that her roommate was a girl, but the roommate didn't know that 'he' was a girl. And when the brunette offered her friendship, Fate had nearly succumbed to her selfishness and accepted it. Thank the heavens that she refrained herself from doing so, because at that particular moment, she had felt the familiar fear that gripped her heart.
What would mother think of her if she did accept it?
A pair of ferocious, disappointed eyes flashed in her memories.
She suppressed her shudder. You're a failure, a mistake, her mother's voice echoed in her head.
Hence, she had demanded the brunette to leave her alone. It's for the best. She still thought it was, but when she realized that her roommate was going to receive the punishment for being late, she had spoke up before she could stop herself.
Something about the girl made her want to protect her. She wasn't sure why, or what it was, but that it would only bring trouble.
A splat of water on her cheeks broke her out of her thoughts, and luckily, she had already landed on the opposite side. Releasing her heavy hold on the rope, she stumbled down the stairs.
Another wet sting on her arm brought her eyes towards the drab sky. Large, fat raindrops plunged down, soaking her clothes once more. She didn't really care that she would be doused. All she cared was that she was still alive and kicking.
Would mother by proud if she knew that she had survived the hardest training grounds without any actual training?
Well, she didn't have the luxury to think about the possible answers.
It was coming. She had felt it before she saw it.
Her skin prickled with uneasiness. She raised her head just in time to see a slick beam of metallic silver pummeling towards her.
The next thing she knew, she was blinded by the sudden white. What scared her was, she had recognized what the familiar element that impaled her with full force was.
Magic? She whispered, and her legs gave way, her mind falling into complete darkness.