A Prince for Mikan

A Twisted GA Cinderella Story

by: Esa MaRie

betareader: fantaskie

Summary:

In a world of alice-wielders, Mikan Sakura lived an ordinary life under the abuse of her step-family. But a mysterious crimson-eyed boy suddenly appeared and dragged her to a life of danger, adventure, and… love.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

Chapter 1 - Unpleasant First Impression

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a magical country called Alicea which was surrounded by five different kingdoms. So, what's the catch? There were two kinds of people living in this country, the ordinary people and the alice-wielding people. An alice is a special kind of ability or power born to some of the people in this country. People with alice were considered special and gifted, and most of the noble families in the kingdoms were alice-wielders.

The most powerful among the five kingdoms was the Hyuuga Kingdom ruled by the Hyuuga royal family wielding the fire alice.

It had been several decades since the last war when the other kingdoms had tried to grab the current power that the Hyuuga Kingdom held. For now, peace surrounded the kingdom after treaties with the other kingdoms had been made. People in the kingdom, common or alice-wielders, continued their daily activities; going to the market, gossiping, children playing around. But inside the castle walls…

"OHJI-SAMAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

The wide door opened with a bang to reveal the confused maids who were still in the middle of their work.

"Have any of you seen the prince?!"

Twenty apron-clad maids shook their heads; then the door was closed again.

"What was that?"

"As usual, the prince is nowhere to be found."

"He escaped from his lessons again."

The maids began to giggle, until the loud voice of the head maid stopped them.

"GET BACK TO WORK!!"

The royal tutor stopped to catch his breath as he panted.

"Yo Gokisho-sensei!"

Gokisho looked up and stared at the handsome young lord with blond hair and blue eyes. He quickly grabbed his hand and with tears falling from his eyes, he begged, "Nogi-sama! Where's the prince? You're his best friend, right? You know where he's hiding? The king will surely have my head if he thinks that I'm not doing my job properly. Please Nogi-sama!"

Ruka Nogi, the heir to the Dukedom of Ravenhurst and the prince's best friend, sweat-dropped.

"Er… No. I have no idea…" he said. "I actually came here to visit him." 'Natsume, what are you up to now?'

"WAAAHHHH!! NATSUME OHJI-SAMAAAAA!!

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

Up on one of the branches of a Sakura tree outside the castle walls, a young man of about eighteen with dark raven hair was awakened by the noise from the palace.

"Tch. What an annoying old geezer," he muttered as he removed the manga from his head to reveal a pair of crimson eyes. Knowing that soon enough, the palace guards were going to search this place, he jumped from the tree and straightened to his full height of six feet. He gave one last glance at the castle, then gave a smirk as he grabbed some pieces of clothing that he had prepared, and walked off towards the town.

Hyuuga Natsume Hotohori Ryuugi or Hyuuga Natsume for short was the prince of this glorious kingdom.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

"MIKANNNN!"

An auburn-haired, sixteen-year old girl in ponytails dashed towards the house balancing a huge basket of laundry on top of her head and several plastics of cosmetic items. "C-coming!" she yelled in response, panting at the heaviness of her baggage.

As she reached the front door, her stepmother was already waiting for her, her hands on her waist with a look of annoyance on her face. "Where were you?" she asked in irritation.

"Ano… okaa-san… the basket is quite heavy and I had to stop in the store to buy the things that Sumire requested so…" Mikan tried to explain but was just cut off by her stepmother.

"Excuses, excuses!" Lady Hikari snapped. "Why don't you just admit that you became lazy so you were not able to finish your chores on time?"

'No one could finish the chores that you all are giving me!' Mikan wanted to scream at her but she kept her mouth shut. "Gomen, okaa-san."

"Go back to the kitchen and prepare our dinner," her stepmother ordered.

Mikan bent her head in a bow, then carried her baggage and went to the kitchen through the backdoor. She sighed as she reached the kitchen and rested her head against the wall.

'Damn them all!' she cursed silently. 'If only father didn't die, if only he left me something so that I could have lived off separately from these monsters…'

Mikan Sakura, sixteen years of age, was living as the step-daughter of Lady Hikari, but it was just a front. She actually lived as an all-around maid in the household. After Mikan's mother died when she was five, her father had given all his attention to her, showering her with all the love that a father could ever provide. Their family belonged to the ordinary non-Alice wielders but her father was quite a successful businessman. Despite that, Mikan was brought up not to depend on other people. She knew how to do household chores and she tried to help her father whenever she could.

When she was eleven, her father came home with a woman named Hikari and her two daughters. Lady Hikari Shouda-Sakura, as she was introduced, was the widowed daughter of one of her father's business associates and belonged to a noble family of alice-wielders. When Mikan tried to ask for explanations as to the reason for the sudden marriage, her father just shook his head and told her that everything would be okay. Though quite stern in appearance, Lady Hikari was quite nice during the introductions, but her attitude changed every time her father was out. Mikan didn't mind it at first since Lady Hikari didn't direct her attacks at her but when her father died two years later due to an accident, her life took a 360 degree turn around. It turned out that her father owed Lady Hikari's father a huge amount of money and would have been sent to jail if not for Lady Hikari's interference. It seemed that Lady Hikari had developed an affection for Mikan's father and used his debt for him to be tied down to her. But when he died, Lady Hikari forced the debt on Mikan's shoulder, even taking claim on the house that was rightfully hers as inheritance, since there was no contract that the marriage had dissolved the liability.

Mikan gritted her teeth in frustration. 'Forcing me to call her 'okaa-san' when she and her daughters actually treat me like dirt!' The real purpose was actually to show-off their charity to the orphaned daughter of her deceased husband and to gain sympathy and approval from society.

Mikan sighed again as she took the ingredients that she needed to cook when she heard loud voices upstairs. 'Those Shoda sisters are bickering again…' she concluded. Sumire Shouda, sixteen years old with dark, permed hair possessed the alice that allowed her to have the senses of a cat and a dog, and she was the self-proclaimed president of the prince's fan club. Karin Shouda, fourteen years old also possessed the same alice, and was a member of the same club (though they often fought on who should be the real president). Based on what she had heard, Lady Hikari had the cat alice while her first husband had the dog alice, therefore their children possessed a combination of both alices. In Mikan's opinion, their alices were not really impressive, but the fact that they were alice-wielders gave them an air of superiority, letting them think that they were above ordinary people like her.

Sometimes they thought too highly of themselves especially with matters concerning the prince. It was Lady Hikari's greatest dream that one of her daughters would marry the prince of the Hyuuga Kingdom, Prince Natsume. No wonder both grew up to be vain and lazy as if they were really born to be princesses. Mikan wasn't sure what gave them the confidence that one of them would definitely marry the prince. Maybe because they were alice-wielders, so they had a great chance. But the more the admiration of the Shouda sisters for the prince grew, the more Mikan learned to hate him. It was because when she was little, she had seen from afar how obnoxious and cruel the prince could be when her father brought her to the castle for a business purpose once. She saw him burning a girl's hair after the girl tried to hug him. That was a picture that had stuck in her mind and she completely hated the way girls would sigh and gush over his good looks without knowing what he was like. 'Was he really good looking?' she wondered. But she never had a clear view of the prince, nor did a lot of his fans, since the prince trained for several years in the neighboring kingdom and had just returned.

As she heard another couple of yells upstairs, she just shook her head and gave her full attention back to her work. She still had to go to the market to buy ingredients for the next day's meal.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

After Mikan had finished her chores, she prepared her small run-down carriage to go to the market. "Hello Munchkins dear," she smiled warmly as she greeted her old horse. After she had readied him, they took off towards the center of the town. They stopped a few blocks before the market place since it would be full of people by now. She was about to leave when she noticed that Munchkins seemed uncomfortable.

"Munchkins, are you okay?" she whispered. She grabbed the rope tied to the mare and noticed that there was blood on her mane.

"Oh no, what could have happened?" she thought despairingly as she removed the strapping on the mare.

She tried to check if there was a wound or something, but she could not get a clear view of the mane since Munchkins refused to bend her head. Left with no other choice, she climbed onto Munchkins' back. She checked the mane and could feel her heart stop when she saw a gash.

'Who could have done this?!' she thought angrily. "Shhh… it's okay, it's okay," she tried to console the horse letting her hand run over the mane. Big mistake. The horse jerked when it felt the pain and began running forward with Mikan on its back holding only to its mane.

"Munckins, STOP!!", Mikan yelled as the horse continued to run wildly with her clinging for her dear life. 'No, don't go to the market place!' she prayed. But Kami-sama seemed to be asleep and the horse continued to run amok. She was horrified when she saw a tall, dark-haired guy walking on the street, munching on a piece of apple.

Mikan pulled Munchkin's hair so hard that the mare yelped and threw Mikan off her back and she flew straight toward the dark haired boy.

"LOOK OUT!!"

The boy glanced at the sound but it was too late. Something or someone knocked him flat on the ground.

"Itai!", Mikan winced as she massaged her backside, then she noticed that she was on top of something.

"EEEIIIII!" she shrieked when she noticed that she was straddling the boy. "Gomen-masai!" she apologized as she leaned forward to look at the boy's face, trying to check if he was hurt or something. At the same time, the boy pushed himself up causing their foreheads to hit.

"Ouch!" Mikan cried. She grabbed the boy's shirt for balance causing him to look up… and their lips met. Both hazel and crimson eyes widened in shock that they couldn't move.

"Oi! This is a market place! Get a room you two!"

"KKKKKKKKKKYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

"GET OFF ME!"

The boy pushed Mikan off causing her to fall backwards.

"OUCH!" Mikan cried as she fell. "You bastard! Don't you have any manners?"

"How could I remember my manners when an idiot girl just knocked me off and kissed me?!" he shouted back.

"I did not kiss you! You kissed me! And it wasn't my fault that my horse threw me off!" Mikan yelled back.

"Why would I kiss an idiot like you? An idiot who doesn't even know how to control her own damned horse!"

"I know too, you jerk! You were the one not looking! You were reading a book while walking on the street!"

"You were at fault!"

"No, you were!"

"You!"

"Bastard!"

"Idiot!"

"Jerk!"

"Air-head!"

"Moron!"

"Shut up, you polkadot-panties girl!" the boy yelled out loud causing the girl to gasp. The people who were just curiously watching the entertaining spectacle began to laugh.

Mikan turned bright red. 'He saw her underwear?' "YOU HENTAI!!" she shouted, then slapped him hard across the cheek, and ran away in embarrassment.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

"Your highness! What happened to your face?" Jinno, one of the ministers asked, completely aghast at what he saw. "Who dared do this?! Call the guards!"

"Shut up, old man!" Natsume glared at him; then proceeded to walk towards his room, completely ignoring the commotion that he caused.

He threw himself on the bed, placing his hands at the back of his head as he stared at the ceiling. What happened that afternoon continued to replay in his mind. 'That idiot girl! How dare she slap me!' he thought in irritation. Just then a sudden thought entered his mind which caused him to chuckle. 'What a bad taste in underwear.'

After a few months, since his return in the castle after years of training, he had finally found something entertaining that would definitely relieve him from boredom. He closed his eyes as an evil smirk curved his lips; anticipation began to build within him. 'You seem to have a purpose, little girl. It would be fun tormenting you... But I need to find you first, then I'm gonna give you hell…'

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

A/N 1: (6/10/07) Hiya! It's been a while since my last post here in the Gakuen Alice fandom. So, here's another story from me, though it's quite an overused plot. I actually drafted the first chapter several months ago and almost forgot about it until I scanned my old files yesterday. It's my first AU for Gakuen Alice, so bear with me… Hehehe… Okay, here you go… Read and review please…XD

A/N 2: (6/3/08) Hiya again! I'm having this fic edited so you guys won't have to suffer my grammar inconsistencies. Special thanks to fantaskie for helping me on this. )