Two Sides of Every Coin

xox

Mikan and her daemon walked down the road. It was getting quite dark, and she was determined to find this 'Alice Academy' before night fell. She was sure it was on this street!

Still, there was no sign of it. Damn. Maybe she should just take a taxi. Again.

"Good idea - but didn't the last taxi driver say it was on this street?" whispered her daemon, Koshi. He was currently fluttering around her head in the form of a butterfly; upon Mikan looking up for him, he dropped onto her shoulder as a brightly-coloured parrot.

"Yeah, but we can't find it! Maybe that guy was an idiot," said Mikan. "Or just trying to trick us. Huh?"

Her daemon had sprung from her shoulder and seemed to be straining to see something - was that a gate in the distance?

"D'you think that's it?" he said.

"I bet it is!" she said, cheering up. She ran towards it. Unfortunately, she managed to fall over her feet as she did so and landed, winded, on the pavement opposite the said gate. Scrambling to her feet and wincing at her new bruises, she noticed two men ambling towards her.

"Are you trying to get into the Alice Academy?" the nearer one drawled.

"Yeah!" she said. "Oh hey, is that it?" she asked, ignoring Koshi's agitation. He never wanted to trust strangers! "Calm down," she mentally said to him. He glared.

"Yes, it is, but don't you know it's only for geniuses?" said the man. His daemon, a small brown rat-like creature, nodded in agreement.

"What? Yeah, of course I do! But my friend's in there, do you think they'll let me in for a visit?" Mikan said. Koshi rolled his eyes.

"Well... I don't know," said the second. "But we can help you, you know? If you come with us and into our Alice training school, you'll be sure to get in."

"Really? Oh wow, this is so cool! Please can you help me?" Koshi dug his parrot-claws into Mikan's shoulder and whispered, "You idiot, what has this got to do with Hotaru? These-"

He was interrupted in his Mikan-lecture by the first man putting an arm round Mikan's shoulders and saying, "Now, the entrance test may seem hard, but it's really very-"

And in turn, he was interrupted by someone else, a new voice from behind them that said, "Oh, and where exactly are you taking this girl?"

The men spun around. Mikan did so as well.

"I'm sorry, who the hell are you?" growled the second man. His dog-daemon snarled; the newcomer's bird-daemon grinned (if birds could grin) and snickered. Mikan was wide-eyed in surprise - she had never seen someone like this person!

"I'm a teacher at this Academy," said the ... person, with what Mikan would have recognised as a flirtatious smile if she had been a little older. (Mikan had to think, 'person' because she wasn't quite sure if he was a man or woman, though she was leaning towards the latter.) "And I really think it would be best if you let this girl go, hmm?"

"Let's go," muttered the first man to his friend. "Whoever this freak thinks he is, we need to get going be-"

"I really think it would be best," the so-called freak repeated. "Maybe you should go..." There was a change in his voice; Mikan couldn't quite tell what was happening or why the atmosphere had shifted so, but then the two men were running as fast as they could and Koshi looked impressed.

"What happened?" Mikan asked him, looking round for the other person.

"He touched them and they went. See, I told you we shouldn't have talked to them! We should go before this guy can screw up your brain too..."

No sooner had Koshi suggested that than the person said, "Are you alright?"

"What? I mean, yes, I'm fine! Who are you? Oh wait, if you're a teacher at the Academy then can you please let me in because my best friend is in there and I really need to-"

"Calm down," said the person's daemon. Mikan looked at her, a bright green bird with a red bib and beamed. Koshi turned himself into a matching lovebird and chattered at her.

"You should probably be going home," said the daemon's human, glancing at Koshi's antics. "It's not safe for you to be wandering around so late by yourself." And again there was that subtle change in the air that Mikan couldn't quite put her finger on; was it a new scent, or perhaps it was the not-quite-noticeable pressure around her?

She shook her head to clear herself and said, "No, I really have to find her! I came all the way to Tokyo and I can't go home because I don't have any money left..."

The person looked taken aback. The lovebird-daemon hopped onto his hand and peered closely at Mikan - she didn't notice, but Koshi did.

"Stop talking and be careful!" he whispered.

Mikan stopped. Then she started again, "So... do you know how I can get in?"

"Hmm... I think I do, actually," he said, smiling. The lovebird preened herself, watching Mikan closely. "I think you have a great talent, you know? You don't need to go to any training school - come with me, and I'll see what I can do to get you into the Academy. I think you'd be a great student there."

Mikan gasped. Then she pinched both her cheeks hard. Very, very hard. She squeaked in pain and Koshi said, "Idiot," in her thoughts. Nope, she still hadn't woken up. "What!? Really? You're not joking?"

"It's all true. Now, who were you looking for in there?"

"Hotaru Imai," said Mikan quickly, still pinching her left cheek and wincing at the pain. "She's been my bestest friend since we were four and we entered that dance show together and then she went to the Academy without telling me until the very last day and she never wrote to me! Even though I wrote two letters every day and posted them all every two weeks! Except once when she asked for some melons but... I don't know what's happened to her! And I really need to see her even if it's just for two seconds so I can tell her how much I miss her!"

Koshi sighed. The man looked amused, while his daemon was still staring at Mikan with an unreadable expression on her lovebird-face. "Well, I'm sure we can arrange something!" he said. He stood up, holding out a hand for her to take. She did so. "I'm Narumi-sensei, and I think I know the girl you're talking about. What's your name?"

"Mikan Sakura..." she said. "Hey..." she continued, seemingly puzzled by something, "Are you gay?"

There was a small silence in which the other three gave Mikan varying reactions of exasperated disbelief from Koshi, another amused snicker from the lovebird and a slightly stunned laugh from Narumi himself.

"Uh, not quite," he said. "I think we should get going, Mikan." He pulled her hand, and set off towards the gate.

xox

They had not gone far - two footsteps, in fact - when there was a blast. Not just any little hair-dryer type of blast, but an ear-splitting rumble and smash of boulders as the wall directly above them exploded. Mikan screamed, the sound slightly stifled by Koshi's fur as he turned into a bear to protect her - the lovebird squawked next to her ear, and Narumi was pulling her upright.

"Wha-" There was no time to say anything - Koshi batted a stray falling rock away from them - and growled, "Look up." She looked; was that a person on that ruined wall?

"Natsume Hyuga," said Narumi from behind her. She turned round, mouth open in shock, and saw Narumi with some kind of rope in his hand. "An elementary Academy student... I thought he was going to attempt an escape!" he said, smiling. "Get behind me."

Looking back at Natsume while running away, Mikan could see that the figure was smaller than she had thought. Even though she couldn't see his face, obscured as it was behind some sort of cat-mask, he might even have been the same age as her. She stopped moving, and hugged a rabbit-formed Koshi as she watched the boy drop expertly from the wall, a black shadow following his heels. She only just had time to see that his daemon was, in fact, a cat before there was another deafening crack and a cloud of dust.

"You hit him!" she gasped, looking at Narumi holding a rope - which had somehow extended to gargantuan proportions, but was now shrinking in his hand.

Narumi wasn't listening; he had stepped over to the fallen Natsume. Mikan peered after him. Was he okay? And there was a strange mask on his face - a cat mask? She winced as Narumi roughly stepped on the boy's hand, but her cry of protest was quickly cut off my the boy grunting in pain and Narumi speaking.

"Hey, don't use your Alice now... you'll only force me to use mine, you know?" Narumi said to him. Narumi's daemon snorted, and Natsume's cat-shaped one turned into a much larger, black panther-like creature before hissing at them both. "Not that I mind; it's actually rather fun, now that you mention it." He smiled, sighing as he did so - Mikan couldn't quite see what was happening, but in the next moment Natsume had slumped over and the panther had turned into a sleeping ferret. The cat mask had fallen to the floor; Narumi picked it up and looked at it with some interest.

"Er... what happened?" she said, looking anxiously at them.

"Routine arrangement," said Narumi cheerfully. He hoisted Natsume onto his shoulder and again held out his hand for Mikan, who took it with some trepidation. (This was the same person who had just knocked out a boy in front of her.) The lovebird poked the ferret with her beak before turning to Koshi and saying, "Do you mind taking the daemon?"

Koshi obliged by turning into a beagle and settling the ferret on his back. It was strange, Mikan thought, having your daemon touching another's while only being the barest of aquaintances, but she supposed it was much less awkward than Narumi or herself touching the boy's - Natsume's - daemon themselves. She was still thinking about this when Narumi stopped. They had passed through the gate without her even noticing - she was inside the Academy!

"And welcome to Alice Academy," said Narumi. Mikan could only stare in shock.

xox

It was so much bigger than she had imagined. No, it was so much bigger and better and grander and wealthier than she could have imagined. She was sitting in the "Entrance Hall", a term that she had only known as "a small dingy room in front of the headmistress's office". This Entrance Hall was the size of... well, the size of her school.

Okay, maybe not that big. But it was probably as expensive as her school. Or should that be her old school? She felt a small twinge of guilt when she remembered that Hotaru had left to keep that school open, and now she was leaving it too... probably. She still couldn't believe it. There was too much to believe.

She sighed. Thoughts of Narumi, various stories of what "evil men did to little girls and boys" danced in her head - she glanced at the still sleeping boy on the couch behind her and wondered if Hotaru had ever been knocked out. Or whipped. Or exploded. Or-

There was a deafening crash. Again. Mikan screamed, jumped up and started running - Koshi started and barked at the intrusion before accidentally tripping her up so that she landed - hard - on the ground.

"NARUMI WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BEAN WH-oh, he's not here," said a man, slamming the door open so hard that it knocked over a table, rebounded into his hand and was promptly slammed again into the wall. Or, rather than 'said', 'shouted so loudly that Mikan's eardrums had probably burst'. She was still whimpering when he noticed her, the growling Koshi and the unconscious Natsume in the corner.

"Who are you?" he said.

"Uh... Mikan Sakura, Narumi-sensei said that I was going to be a pupil at this school please don't hurt me!"

"Oh. Great," said the man. He turned and walked back towards the doorway. Mikan immediately jumped up and ran after him, grabbing his shirt.

"Don't go! Help me! What's happening and why did Narumi kill that boy and what's going to happen to me and is Hotaru okay?"

There was a pause while the man disentangled Mikan's hand from his shirt. "I doubt that Natsume's dead, however helpful that might have been. Just... sit here calmly until he comes back? At least, I hope he comes back. How very like him..."

Mikan's eyebrows were furrowed in confusion, however, she sat back down anyway. Koshi jumped onto her lap as a rabbit and looked expectantly at both the humans. "But what did Narumi do to him?" said Mikan. "Are you sure he's not dead? Is Narumi a child molester? Or something? What is this place?! And who are you?"

"You're panicking," whispered Koshi in her head. She shook her head and calmed herself down by eating the cake that she had been carrying around for the last two hours. The man looked at her - disapprovingly, thought Koshi, and resolved to improve Mikan's manners in the future.

"Misaki-sensei. Probably your future Biology teacher, since you've been manhandled into this school." There was a small hiss; Mikan looked down in surprise, and saw that Misaki's daemon was a thin grey snake wrapped around his arm. Mikan moved back warily. Snakes were kind of creepy. "Narumi's Alice... do you know what an Alice is?" continued Misaki.

She shook her head.

"You really don't know anything about this place..." he muttered, before continuing with, "An Alice is like a special power, or a person with a special power. Like a magical talent, or ability. Do you understand?"

Mikan's eyes were wide - even Koshi looked interested. "What? Like magic? Omigosh, and I'm one of those special people and omigosh this is just like that manga I was reading yesterday this is so cool what's my Alice then?" She bounced up and down and grabbed Misaki's arm excitedly, forgetting for a moment that there was a possibly poisonous snake attatched to it. Now it was his turn to move back warily.

"Er... I don't know. You have to ask Narumi, since he's the one who thinks you should be here-"

"What's his Alice then? And yours? And Natsume who's sleeping over there are you sure he's okay?"

Misaki closed his eyes. Mikan watched him with anticipation. Hurry up! Koshi rolled his eyes at her, but she didn't care. "Oh come on, you must be interested in this too!" she said to him mentally.

"Narumi has the Alice of Human Pheromones. He can control people - by making them fall in love with him. An annoyingly stupid Alice to suit an annoyingly stupid person," he added. "With children, it's too strong for them and so they pass out like Natsume here."

"But but but he whipped him! And stomped on his hand! Does he do that to everyone?!"

"Pretty mu- no, forget I said that. I mean, Natsume probably needed it - if he had been caught by someone else, not Narumi, then he would get a much bigger punishment than simply a nap. Narumi was probably doing the right thing, covering for him."

"Right," said Mikan, not really understand but prepared just to go along with this. There was too much... "And this mask? It's kinda cute..." She held out the black cat mask that had previously been on Natsume's face.

Misaki sighed. "It's a Alice limiter. It's to punish Natsume so he can't use his powers, though I think he's too strong for something like that to hold him back."

"Oh. So what's your-"

There was a loud beep from Misaki's pocket, and he quickly pulled out some small electric device before saying, "Intruders in the greenhouse again! I have to go. If Natsume wakes up, press the emergency button."

Mikan barely had time to say, "Bye?" before he had run out the door. Why was everything happening so quickly?

xox

A few quiet minutes had passed and Mikan was looking nostalgically at her photo album. Hotaru... and Daimu... but, as she kept reminding herself and as Koshi kept warning her against, she was going to see them again! Very soon!

Her happy thoughts were quickly interrupted by a painful yank on her left pigtail. What?

"Shut up or die," snarled a voice next to her ear. Mikan squeaked, shouting for Koshi in her head.

"Don't bother about your daemon, kid," said a female voice next to her other ear. The grip on her pigtail sharpened, and Mikan felt herself somehow be spun round and pinned down on the sofa, staring up at a now fully-awake Natsume. Kicking and struggling with all her might, she caught a glance of her black-bear-formed Koshi in the grip of a much larger and scarier-looking polar bear, which had presumably been a ferret asleep around Natsume's neck a few seconds ago.

"What the he-"

"I said, shut up!" spat Natsume. Mikan stopped struggling for a moment, quickly tiring, before putting all her effort into freeing her arms. Natsume easily suppressed it. She felt Koshi's confusion as he tried to change into a smaller form to get out of the other daemon's deathgrip, but her claws threatened to slash him if he moved even as much as an inch.

"Ge-"

"What's your name?" Natsume snarled.

Mikan screwed up her eyes.

"I said, what's your name?! Tell me or I'll burn you! I mean it!" He held up a hand, seemingly about to punch her - Mikan closed her eyes again and attempted a roll off the sofa. Nothing hard met her face, and neither had she managed to get anywhere, so she opened her eyes again. Nothing had happened except that Natsume looked, if possible, even more angry and then something smashed the window.

Natsume looked up. Mikan twisted round so she could see too, but the back of the sofa was in the way - "It's a blonde boy, rabbit daemon," said Koshi. The other bear seemed to sense the mental dialogue, and growled deep in her throat.

"You're late," said Natsume.

"Sorry!" said a new voice - the blonde boy, Mikan thought. "There wasn't any time - I think Misaki-sensei saw me!"

"Whatever," growled Natsume. "I got taken out by Naru, and then I woke up with this girl next to me. She's going to tell me her name or I'm going to burn her, understood?" he said, the last sentence directed at Mikan.

"Natsu-" started the other boy.

There was yet another crash as the door slammed open again, knocking over the same table - and then Natsume was knocked off her, the polar bear flowing to his shoulder as a black cat. She turned and snarled at the newcomers before holding up a paw, a piece of cloth and pattern that looked much too familiar dangling off a claw, and saying, "Missing something?"

A glimpse of the other boy as they both jumped through the broken window and ran.

Mikan could feel a fit coming on.

xox

"HOW DID HE DO THAT?! AND WHY?! NOW NO-ONE WILL EVER WANT ME! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! RAPIST! MOLESTER! I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM!" She paused to take a tear-filled breath, blew her nose on a tissue Narumi handed her, and started up again, "I HATE HIM! AND THAT OTHER BOY I DIDN'T EVEN SEE BUT WAS SOMEHOW FRIENDS WITH THAT CREEP AND HELPED HIM ESCAPE AND WHY?! HE'S A DISGUSTING RAPIST WHO STEALS INNOCENT GIRLS' UNDERWEAR AND I HATE HIM!"

Koshi licked her hand, noticing that the two teachers and their daemons behind her were exchanging various looks and quiet sentences such like, "I never knew Natsume had such a great talent..." and "How long is this going to take?"

"I HATE HIM!" She gave one last sniffle before throwing her head into her hands and slumping onto the table. No-one disturbed her for some time.

"Good news," a voice said gently. She looked up at Narumi beside her. He held up a uniform. "You've been accepted as a pupil; you're going to see your friend after all!"

Mikan sat up. "Really? What, really really? I'm going to see Hotaru again?!" And just like that, her mood had been changed. Koshi licked her hand, beagle-formed.

"Really," said Narumi. "Now, let's get you cleaned up and changed into your new uniform."

xox

Mikan stared at her reflection, not quite believing her eyes. She was really here! A student at Alice Academy... with an Alice!

"Which we don't actually know," said Koshi.

"But we're going to find out. So there." She stuck her tongue out at him. He gave a doggy grin, and settled on her shoulder as a butterfly. "Get out there."

She came out of the dressing room smiling, and Narumi beamed as she did so. "Now you're a real member of this school!" She laughed as he picked her up and swung her round just like Hotaru's dad used to do, and Koshi fluttered happily around them.

"So... what's my Alice? And when can I see Hotaru?"

"You need to figure out your Alice by yourself," said Narumi. Mikan thought she saw Misaki exchange a tired look with Narumi's lovebird-daemon, but she wasn't concentrating on that. "But if your Hotaru's the same person that I think she is, then you're going to see her quite soon."

And quite soon it was - he had just finished that sentence when there was a knock on the door. A boy and girl around the same age as Mikan walked in, one of them strangely unfamiliar in her uniform but the same person nonetheless...

"HOTARU!!" Mikan shouted as she hurtled towards the girl. She didn't notice Hotaru backing away, a look on her face that meant 'No, why did she come?' on her face. "Hotaru, I want to hug you! I've missed you so much, I can't believe I'm seeing you again, Hotaru I love you!"

There was a pause, Hotaru holding Mikan at an arm's length, and then - "Wonderful," she said, icily. A firefly danced around her head, blinking its encrypted messages.

xox

A/N: A few things about daemons. They're a crossover with 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman, a series which I highly recommend you read. Daemons are basically your conscience or 'little voice in your head' that takes a physical animal form, strongly bound to their human. A child's daemon can change shape, but as their personality settles, the daemon's form becomes fixed into one that best represents that person - so Narumi's personality is like a lovebird, etc. To touch another person's daemon is taboo unless you're extremely close to them (much like sex) - talking to another's daemon isn't quite so intimate, but still only reserved for close friends. (Usually. Natsume's daemon doesn't care so much for social restraints, which is why she isn't bothered about talking to Mikan directly.)

As for where this story is going, yes, this first chapter is almost exactly the same as the first two chapters of the manga. I think I'm going to change the storyline drastically from the next chapter, though. This feels a bit rushed. Oh well.