GA II - Prologue

GA II
Prologue

_{The continuing story of Gakuen Alice}

“Let me take it! Please, let me take your Alice!”  Mikan was sitting on the edge of a hospital bed holding his hands firmly between her own.  Her tears pooled in her large brown eyes as she pleaded to do the only thing that she thought could save his life.  

“Do you realize what you are asking?  If you steal my Alice, I can no longer stay with you here, at the academy,” his voice repeated through her head.

“But you’ll be alive!”  Mikan continued to plead with him.  She hadn’t ever thought that her stealing Alice would ever be good for anything.  She thought back to the time when the conflict with the Elementary School Principal was yet unresolved.  Noda sensei had taken her and her friends on a visit to the past in order so that Mikan could learn about her mother, Azumi Yuka.  She had seen how the Elementary School Principal had used her mother’s stealing Alice for his own ominous desires when she was younger.  

They were working to change all of that now.  The battle with the Elementary School Principal was over.  He had been stripped of his position at Gakuen Alice and was now being held in a maximum-security prison for his transgressions.  The Academy had been reforged into a safe haven for all Alice owners.  The Dangerous Type Abilities class was now the Special Alice Protection and Preservation Unit, of which her mother was in charge.  The unit was formed of Alice owners who voluntarily wished to protect the academy and all Alice owners from outside and inside threats.   This was to insure that nothing like the previous incident with the Elementary School Principal would ever happen again.  Anyone who was deemed to have a “dangerous Alice” were fitted with an Alice control device and taught how to control their Alice.  A new class was also introduced into the curriculum, called Alice Mastery & Awareness, which taught that any Alice could be dangerous, if used wrong, and taught how to master your Alice so that you are not a threat to others.  Azumi Yuka was the teacher in charge of this new class.

Slow progress was being made also in which students who showed significant progress and control over their Alice, or those whose Alice wasn’t innately dangerous, were allowed visitation with their families outside of the academy.  

“As long as you are alive then there is hope that I will see you again,” Mikan found herself pleading in the hospital room again.  

The scene switched and suddenly Mikan found herself sitting in the hospital waiting room.  Hotaru sat beside her, holding her hand.  Ruka sat to her other side, holding her other hand.  Yo-chan, in his 14-year-old form, was sitting behind her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders.  The waiting room was filled with her classmates.  Her mother paced the room anxiously.  

Mikan squeezed Hotaru and Ruka’s hands tightly when the doctor walked through the door, his mastery over the control of his emotions left his face impossible to read.  “The procedure was a complete success,” he spoke after taking a moment to single Mikan out from the crowded room.  “Congratulations, you did it,” he told her with a smile.  

Mikan’s lungs burned with the need for air, reminding her to breath.  At that moment, Imai-san, Hotaru’s older brother, appeared in the doorway.  Mikan pulled free from her friends and tackled him, clinging to him tightly as she cried with relief into his shirt.  “Thank you, Thank you!”  Mikan sobbed happily.

Once again, the scene changed.  Mikan stood in front of the large gated entrance onto the Academy.  She watched as a black car pulled up on the other side.  The gate was opened to allow for the vehicle to drive onto the school grounds.  Her heart pounded with both happiness and sorrow.  Sorrow because she wasn’t sure when she would see him again, but happiness that he was about to be reunited with his family.  He gently squeezed her hand reassuringly as the passenger side door to the vehicle flung upon and a girl with shoulder length black hair and crimson eyes leapt out and ran towards them.  “ONIISAN!!”  She exclaimed as she leapt into her brother’s arms.  Shortly after the girl was hugging Mikan tightly.  “Thank you, Mikan-chan!  

The scene seemed to fast-forward through her memories.  Through the happy reunion and the heart wrenching good-bye.  Soon Mikan was watching the car pull away.  The tint of the car’s windows were too dark, leaving it impossible to see whether those who were inside waved or watched as she slowly disappeared from their sight.

Mikan’s eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring up at her ceiling.  It was still dark as she awoke from her dream.  It was the same dream that she had been having for the past few nights.  Automatically she reached up and felt around her neck for the chain that she seldom took off.  She followed the chain around to the back of her neck, where the stone had slid through the night as she slept.

Taking hold of the stone, she slid it back around and brought it to rest on her chest, where she held it there over her heart.  “Natsume,” she whispered his name quietly.  

Three years had past since Natsume left Gakuen Alice to live with his father and sister.  Mikan was now 15-years-old.  Though they kept in touch for the first couple of years, they had slowly drifted apart.  Mikan became increasingly involved with the operations of the Special Alice Protection and Preservation Unit along with the Alice Mastery & Awareness class and the Families Reunite Project at Gakuen Alice.

Though she had been allowed to visit with the Hyuuga family a few times, her abilities became a necessary commodity in order to allow the students of the academy to have occasional weekend visits with their families under the “Families Reunite Project.”  It was decided that for the safety of the students, after a couple of near kidnapping incidents during the early stages of the project, Mikan and her mother would “steal” the student’s Alice for the time that they were away from the academy.  With only she and her mother able to perform this task, and with her involvement with the other academy affairs, Mikan had limited time to leave Gakuen Alice, herself.  

Mikan rolled to her side in order to peer at her clock.  It was 4:28 in the morning.  With a groan she continued to roll onto her stomach and buried her face into her pillow.  It was too early.  She sighed and turned her head to the side to stare at her shadowed wall.  Her attention returned to her dream.  Though she hadn’t actually seen Natsume in the dream, the scenes had been pulled directly from her memory.  She wondered why she hadn’t been able to actually see him, yet she had felt him there.  She had felt him gently squeeze her hand as he had the day that he left the Academy.  

Natsume’s Alice had been fire, and its shape was limitless, meaning that he could use it anytime, as much and as often as he liked.  However, the price for overusing the Alice would have been his life.  Natsume had nearly died as a result of his Alice.  In order to save his life, Mikan had used her stealing Alice to take Natsume’s fire Alice.  Hotaru’s older brother, who had the healing Alice, then set to the task of healing the damage that the overuse of the fire Alice had done to Natsume’s body.  Because of their success, Natsume’s life had been saved.  However, because he no longer had an Alice, he was no longer allowed to stay at the academy.  He returned to his family home to live with his father and sister.  

During the battle with the Elementary School Principal, Natsume had more or less confessed that he loved her.  Though they weren’t “officially” together, it was implied that they were a couple.  Everyone believed that they were, even though their relationship was a long distance one.  Through the first couple of years they exchanged letters, mail was no longer limited to the students at Gakuen Alice, and Mikan had been allowed to visit with Natsume at his father’s home a few times.  It was nearly a year since Mikan had heard from him.  Though she sent a few letters throughout that time, he hadn’t bothered to reply.  

Mikan reached for the stone that hung around her neck.  If it weren’t for the darkness of the room one would see that the stone was a brilliant shade of red.   It was Natsume’s Alice stone.  Her mother had it made into a necklace at Mikan’s request.  The fact that she always wore it, to most of her friends, claimed her as being Natsume’s girlfriend.  Though he hadn’t actually said anything about it, Natsume appeared pleased to see it around her neck during her visits.  

It hurt to think about her time spent with the Hyuuga’s.  Especially because she had no idea what was going on.  Why hadn’t he replied to any of her letters?  Was he okay?  Did they move?  Had he found a girlfriend at his new school?  Phones were limited to the students at the academy as was the use of the Internet, which was programmed only to allow for certain sites to be accessed and e-mail wasn’t allowed, as a security precaution.  

Realizing that she wasn’t going to get back to sleep, Mikan pushed herself up from her bed and walked across the dark room to her desk.  She switched on her desktop lamp and sat, making the decision to send one more letter.

The light from the morning sun illuminated the room by the time that Mikan finished the letter.  She folded and slid it into an envelope that she addressed to Hyuuga Natsume.  Placing the letter in her school bag, Mikan went about her morning routine in preparation for class.  She would be graduating soon, from the Jr. High Division.  Likewise, Tsubasa and Misaki Senpai would be graduating from High School.  They were to be married over the summer.   

As she pulled the shirt of her spring uniform over her head there was a knock on her door.  “Coming,” she answered, pulling her long hazel colored hair out of her shirt, not having yet pulled it up into a pony tail, and walking to her door to answer.  She opened her door to reveal her mother standing in the hallway.  Mikan stared at her in surprise.  It wasn’t often that her mother made a visit to her dorm room.  In fact, Mikan wasn’t sure that it had ever happened before now.  Usually they met in her mother’s office or classroom.  Azumi Yuka had been given the position of the Elementary School Principal after the former Principal was stripped of the position. “Azumi-sensei,” Mikan said with a hint of surprise, using the name that the other students used when addressing her mother.  Mikan found it difficult to call the woman “mother,” having only known her for 3 years, during which they shared more of a teacher/student relationship then a mother/daughter one.  “C…come in,” Mikan invited, stepping back from the door to allow room for her mother to come into the room.

Yuka stepped into her daughter’s room cautiously, realizing that this was the first time she had ever been there.   A twinge of guilt surged through her stomach over how little she had actually acted like a mother towards her daughter.  She wasn’t sure that she had the right to be there now, to act as a parent.  Yuka walked to the middle of the room where she stood, trying to gather her thoughts.

Mikan watched awkwardly as her mother walked slowly into the room.  Mikan was so surprised by the sudden visit that she stammered with the right words to say.  “So….uh….what’s going on?  Is there something wrong?”

After taking a deep breath, Yuka turned to face her daughter, who still stood by the door, holding it open.  “I wanted to talk to you about something…..to be the first to tell you,” she stumbled in saying.  

Mikan closed the door as if in slow motion.  The tension between them was obvious.  Neither knew how to react towards the other.  “S…sure,” Mikan replied.  “Wont you sit down?”  Mikan asked politely, motioning towards her desk chair.  Once the door was closed Mikan crossed the room to sit on her bed.  

“Graduation is coming up,” Yuka stated the obvious.  Mikan nodded her head in response.  “As you know, Andou Tsubasa and Harada Misaki will be graduating,” Yuka said, once against stating the obvious.  Again, Mikan nodded and tried not to cock an eyebrow.  She wondered why her mother was interested in her Senpai’s graduation ceremony all of a sudden.  Granted, Yuka had saved Tsubasa back during the conflict with the Elementary School Principal, but Mikan couldn’t make sense in what his graduation had to do with her mother’s unexpected visit to her room.  

“And Tsubasa-kun and Misaki-chan will be married this summer,” Yuka added to her review of the events that would be occurring within the next couple of months.  Mikan watched her mother silently, waiting for her to get to the point.  Yuka swallowed a lump in her throat before continuing.  “We have decided to send you, and 3 others to a high school outside of Gakuen Alice….,” Yuka finally explained