A/N: Right, so. I know my updating has been slowly recently, and I'm sorry for that. I had three days of dance in a row, which killed me (I'm serious. My muscles are aching like a bitch). Enough of my excuses, here's the next chapter! Ooh, secrets are going to be revealed!

Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice. (Pssh, isn't that obvious?)

Chapter dedicated to: DeadlySilentAnimeLover (:D)

Fate's Experiment

By Rock-n-Round

Experiment 3: Revelation

Natsume gritted teeth as he felt a familiar sharp pain attack his head. He wanted very much to squat down in the middle of the road and puke his intestines out, but he couldn't quite do that for he was helping Twelve hobble feebly down a path alongside the brunette, Mikan. Doing so would draw too much attention from these two strangers, too.

The pain had started out as a dull throbbing at first; and so he didn't think much of it. However, as time went by, the pain seemed to increase considerably. Perhaps, he had used his Alice too much just now. It had been quite some time since he used it—as soon as Kuonji had found out he was just another one of his failed experiments, he did not need to use his Fire Alice as much—which was pretty much good news, Natsume supposed. The lad pressed his lips into a thin line, attempting to stop the bile from rising up his throat. Natsume focused his eyes on the path they were walking on, sweat pouring down his forehead as he tried to keep an emotionless mask on.

The man beside him turned to face Natsume, probably noticing that he was acting pretty oddly. "Hey, you're pretty hot."

Natsume kept his gaze forward, and he heard Mikan give a little snort. "Are you gay or something?"

Tsubasa shook his head. "No. I meant it literally." The man stopped in his tracks, and paused to feel Natsume's neck. "Thirteen, you're burning up."

Crimson eyes remained dull and bored. "It's nothing."

The three of them remained silent for a moment, before Tsubasa broke it. "Side-effects, kid?" Natsume understood what the man was asking, and he gave a brief nod in response to his question. The man sighed. "C'mon, the sooner we get back, the better. My muscles are aching like a bitch."

They trudged further down, until a small maroon house appeared a little after a large field of wildflowers. They paused, silent as they stared at the building before them.

"What're we going to tell Uncle Rei about Thirteen, Tsubasa?" The question came in a whisper from Mikan's lips.

"Well," Tsubasa closed his eyes, mind searching his thoughts, "I'm little too tired to think properly, but I think it'd be best if we don't tell him about Thirteen yet. He'd flip out." The man reopened his eyes. "Remember that puppy we brought back after that one mission? It's going to be like that."

Natsume's eyes narrowed. "You're comparing me to a freaking puppy?"

"If you put it that way, then yes." Tsubasa smirked a little.

The raven-haired lad rubbed his temples. "I already don't like you."

"Don't have to," the blue-eyed man easily countered. "'Sides, I'm not going to be seeing much of you."

Mikan snapped her head up into his direction. "What? What do you mean by that, huh?"

Tsubasa urged the other two to move forward with a little jerk. The pair complied, helping him up the porch and through the doors of the house. Once the three was settled onto the couch, Tsubasa spoke. "He's going to stay at your place, Mikan."

Mikan almost dropped the first aid kit that she was holding on to. "What?" The girl's voice was laced with disbelief, "But, why?"

"As you can see," Tsubasa gestured towards himself, "I'm in no condition to be providing for another person. And, my house is just next doors to the headquarters, if you hadn't noticed. Persona will find out about Thirteen quickly if he stays at my place."

Natsume listened intently to the conversation, eyes closed to ease his headache. Really, all he wanted was to escape. He hadn't really thought far about it; he had actually intended to live on the streets and maybe do a little street performance to earn some quick cash for food and water. He had not calculated the chances of people infiltrating on the day he was to escape, but somehow, he felt grateful that he had met these people. They didn't seem to hold any ill intentions, seeing that one of them was the famous escaped experiment himself.

The raven-haired lad heard the girl complain. "But Thirteen's a guy, and I'm a girl!"

Natsume opened an eye. "It's not like I'm going to rape you—I'm not interested."

Putting the first aid kit down onto the floor, the girl pulled out a towel and went into the washroom to get a basin. Natsume watched as she filled up the container with lukewarm water, muttering some nonsense about "flat", "unattractive" and "stupid".

"Fine." Mikan said when she returned, "but we're setting down some rules." She dunked the towel into the basin, soaking the white cloth up with water. Lightly dabbing it onto Tsubasa's wounds, she continued. "Firstly, no one must know you're at my place. If anyone comes over, you have to hide. Even you if you do get caught, make up something. Secondly, you have to find a job—" Natsume raised his brow a little at this, "—because I won't have a freeloader in my house. Thirdly, if Persona wants us dead because of this, you," the brunette glared hard at Tsubasa, pressing a little harder onto his wounds for emphasis, "are to hold the responsibility. And lastly," the girl placed the now blood-soaked towel back into the basin, and let her eyes fall into Natsume. "I expect you to trust us."

Natsume sat up, ignoring his protesting body. He rolled his eyes. "Hello, I trusted you enough to follow you all the way here, didn't I?"

"Sure you did. But," Mikan matched his eyes, "you didn't trust us enough to give your name."

The lad paused, casting his gaze away from the girl. "Unless you've been through what I have, you wouldn't understand."

Brief silence followed for a moment. Natsume noticed how Mikan shuffled nervously, knowing that she had brought up a touchy subject. Tsubasa sighed as his eyes glazed over with memories. "Yeah, kid. I can empathise." Blue eyes met his red ones, "Tell me, Thirteen. What exactly are you doing, escaping like that?"

The boy did not break eye contact with Tsubasa, soundlessly contemplating on whether to tell them about his situation or not. "Family," Natsume replied simply after a while, "I need to find them."

"Any leads?" Tsubasa probed further.

Slowly, the lad shook his head. "I lost contact with them eleven years ago; I don't even know whether they're dead or alive."

Tsubasa clicked his tongue. "That's going to tough—"

"Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious."

"—but maybe we can help you. We have access to a lot of information, just so you know." Tsubasa finished, ignoring Natsume's interruption. The raven-haired lad looked like he was deep in thought, with his head resting on an open palm. Mikan's eyebrows furrowed, not exactly comprehending their conversation.

"We hardly know him, Tsubasa." The brunette started, "How could you offer something like that—"

"Because I'm been there, Mikan." Tsubasa turned his attention to the girl, "I'm one of those human experiments myself."

Mikan sat on the floor, dazed at the sudden confession. Gradually, the information sunk into her, and she hesitantly spoke up. "What exactly happen to these human experiments, anyway?"

"We attain some sort of power called an Alice," it was Natsume who replied, "and that power is suited according to your personality. It ain't exactly nice living as a human experiment, having to bear with shit every day; many suffer from the side-effects of having an Alice, though they vary from person to person."

Mikan remained quiet for a moment, before the next question came. "So what happens during experimentation?"

Tsubasa sighed and looked away. "They put you on a metal table, inject you with a drug, and then they leave you to deal with the pain yourself. Some have died from it, while others suffer deformities, because it does drastic changes to your body and its DNA."

Some have died from it. Natsume let the words sink into his mind. Died. Died, died—

…

Nine-year-old Natsume tiptoed, wondering what was on the other side of the door. He was pretty sure it wasn't going to be anything pleasant, at the very least, with all the screaming that was penetrating the tense silence. Through the little window on the door, Natsume managed to look into the room next to his.

Inside, there was a boy, perhaps around two to three years older than he was. He was almost completely naked, violently writhing around a metal table and screaming loudly. His blonde hair was drenched in his own sweat, features contorting in pain. Blood was pouring from different areas of his body, and his chest looked like it was about to burst; something was forming from his stomach, much like how a baby grew in a mother's womb. The thing was punching around inside his stomach—it was disgusting and utterly disturbing.

Natsume wanted to tear his eyes off the image in front of his, but he just couldn't bring himself to. He was rooted to the ground, eyes glued in horror to the image of the poor boy before him. He watched helplessly as the boy slowly stopped resisting, the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest gradually decreasing until he stopped completely.

At that time, the boy's head lulled to the side, towards Natsume. Crimson eyes widened as they matched with the lifeless eyes of the boy. His kind brown eyes were now devoid of life.

They were still, soulness, and cold.

Terrified, tortured, and lost.

His eyes were dead.

"Subject thirteen A, Kaname Sono, dead. Reason, stress overload on his body. Experiment declared as failed."

The boy was dead.

And Natsume Hyuuga witnessed his death.

…

"Thirteen? Thirteen! Answer me, you're scaring us."

Natsume could not hear anything. The figures in front of him swirled, but he could vaguely make out a pair of familiar brown eyes staring back at him. Kaname Sono, I'm sorry.

All he could remember was a mixture of blood and bile spewing out of his mouth and alarmed shouts reaching his ears before he completely let the darkness take over him.

A blonde boy sat on a chair, contentedly sipping on his caramel macchiato as he watched his girlfriend sauntering over to him. Through her composed exterior, the lad could actually tell that she was fed up with something—her knuckles gripped the slings of her bag so tightly that they had turned white.

"What's the matter, Hotaru?"

Amethyst eyes met with blue ones. "How'd you know I have something on my mind?"

"I am your boyfriend, after all," Ruka replied with a light smile, "so tell me, what's wrong?"

The girl huffed. "It's that stupid best friend of mine again. She doesn't tell me anything about that spy job of hers even though I already know about it. She's taking a damn long time to come out with the truth, that idiotic nincompoop; thinks she won't worry me by hiding everything from me. Well, haven't she thought that I'd worry more if she hadn't told me anything at all? Haven't she thought that I'd find out? I mean, I install cameras in her apartment—"

"Woah, cameras?" The lad put down his cup, "Isn't that intruding on her privacy?"

There was silence, before a short reply came. "I have a couple in yours, too."

Ruka gave an awkward chuckle to this statement. "Uh, right. Anyway, maybe your friend just needs time."

"Well, I've given her plenty of that," came the curt response from Hotaru. Ruka sighed as he took another sip of his drink. "But enough of me, Ruka—I know something's eating you—and it has been, for a really long time."

"What are you talking about?" Ruka kept a straight face, trying to feign ignorance.

"You jolly well know what, Ruka. I've given you enough time, too. If you haven't noticed, your girlfriend's a technological genius. I can break into any website or information source—and get away uncaught." She leaned into the table, resting her head on her hands, "Out with it, now."

The lad cast his eyes onto the floor, staring at his feet. Fiddling with his fingers which were resting on the table, he spoke. "I, well, have a best friend—you know, the one that I said reminded me of you? He's been missing for eleven years already, and I still can't find him. His sister disappeared, too, a couple of years after him. I've been searching for all these years, but still no clue. None at all. I really don't want to admit this, but," he sighed at he buried his head into his hands, "I'm starting to lose hope."

Silence hung over the table for a moment, before Hotaru nodded. "Just as I suspected, then."

Ruka's eyebrows shot up. "You mean you knew?"

"All along. If you tell me who he is, I could dig out some information for you."

Ruka remained silent, eyes wide in disbelief. His blue eyes started to awaken with new-found hope, simmering slightly as he looked up to match Hotaru's gorgeous amethyst eyes.

"Natsume," Ruka managed to croak out after some time. He cleared his throat once again, and repeated himself more clearly. "His name is Natsume Hyuuga."

Natsume felt hot and cold at the same time. He could feel the heat that he was emitting off, but yet he was freezing cold, his body shivering in agreement. The cooling washcloth on his forehead didn't help, either. He let his head tilt to the side, hoping that the cold object would slip off, but a warm hand held it in place.

"Don't do that, Thirteen," a voice lightly scolded, "You need it to cool off."

For a split second, he thought that the person on his bedside was Nobara. However, he soon decided against it when he opened his eyes. The room was dimly-lit, and it looked and felt foreign to him. There was also a brunette looking down worriedly on him. Oh right, he suddenly remembered, I escaped. The red-eyed lad looked around the room, noting the absence of Tsubasa.

"Where's Twelve?"

"Twelve?" Mikan's voice was confused, "Oh, you mean Tsubasa? I sent him to the hospital for stitches; we already dropped by Uncle Rei's just now and reported our mission status to him. He didn't look angry, but he wasn't too pleased either." She removed the cloth on his forehead to check his temperature, "your temperature's already down, but you still have a little fever. You'd probably be fine tomorrow. Think you can stomach some broth?"

Natsume faintly made out the brunette pointing to a bowl on the table next to his bed with his bleary eyes, and he nodded slowly. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast this morning, and honestly, the lad was feeling hungry. When the bowl was offered to him, Natsume reached out to it, only to miss the bowl by inches. Hissing in embarrassment, he tried to focus his eyes and grab the bowl again. Mikan furrowed her brows in worry as she saw this, and laid her hand atop of his, and pushed it away.

"Here, I'll feed you."

Natsume scowled. "I know I'm sick and all," he rasped, "but I'm not a baby. I can manage."

Mikan shook her head in disapproval. "Sure doesn't look like it to me. Just stop it and let me feed you before you starve to death, alright?"

"No."

The brunette sighed. "So you're one of those ego maniacs?"

"Well," the lad frowned a little, head turning away, "I'm sorry if I am, but that's just what you get for living a hell-hole where it's the survival of the fittest."

Mikan caught her tongue. She just stepped on another landmine; she had to be careful with her words. "But," she drawled out, balancing the bowl on her lap, "you have Tsubasa and me to depend on from now onwards. We'll help you."

She heard the boy snort. "Twelve? Don't think so," he faced his ceiling, "You?" There was a pause. Mikan raised a brow, "What about me?"

"I don't know you well enough to decide."

"Are you," the girl tilted her head in question, "hitting on me?"

Ruby eyes rolled. "Think what you like—"

"Aha!" Mikan snapped her fingers, "So you were hitting on me. Didn't know you had it in you, Thirteen."

Natsume shrugged. "I've been through some missions that require sexual appeal for information, but I—"

"Hey, same here!" The brunette suddenly seemed delighted, "Who knew we had so much in common?"

"We don't. And I wasn't hitting on you, ugly. I wonder how you manage to make it through those missions with your low sex appeal." Natsume gave an uninterested look to Mikan, who stared back disbelievingly at him, jaws hanging in surprise.

"Did you just insult me?"

Natsume smirked. "Yes I did, if you were too dumb to realise."

The girl gritted her teeth in anger, roughly banging the bowl of broth back onto the bedside table. She stood abruptly, and Natsume noticed for the first time since he awoke how skimpily she was dressed at that moment—she was clad only in a giant shirt that reached her mid-thigh, and if you were lying down like Natsume was, you could see what was underneath the—

Not that Natsume really bothered, anyway.

"Polka-dots. Interesting choice, little girl."

At that, the brunette's face became blank. Then, it slowly contorted into anger, with a bright red colour slowly making its way towards her ears. How cute, Natsume thought, smirking.

"Hey, Polka. If I had known how fun you were to tease, I would've done that the first time I met you and all the way back into your house."

Mikan was visibly seething in anger. "It's lucky you didn't, because I would have done this—" the girl slapped him square across the cheek, taking Natsume by surprise, "—and then left you. I wouldn't have brought you back, watched you faint, treated your wounds and sat by your bedside for four hours straight into the night just to treat you." She let out an angered and annoyed huff, "I hate you, you—" the brunette stopped mid-sentence, searching for the right words, "—you perverted fox!"

With that, the girl stormed out of the door.

All Natsume could do was stare at her retreating back, speechless.

Persona wanted to bang his head onto the table. So flippin' badly.

Just when he had thought that things would take a turn for the better, reality decides to give him a cold slap on his face. Tsubasa had come by his office earlier, looking a little tattered, and handed in their mission report to him. They did not manage to take down the leader—he already knew that it would happen, but it had his hopes high anyway—but they did manage to get some information for him. However, the information wasn't what he wanted. He needed leads on someone that went missing eleven years ago.

Persona knew that something was fishy when none of them had contacted him for two years—it was like they had died—which he found out later, that they had actually did. He had grieved for a good couple of months, before he started wondering where his godchildren had disappeared to. The information stated that only their parents had died, but not them. That was when something inside of him found its way out. A new light, some kind of hope; hope that he still had some kind of family out in this cruel, harsh world. He had managed to find Mikan Sakura, which he had been insanely happy for. She had been taken to an orphanage soon after the incident, and locating her hadn't been difficult.

What was difficult had been the other two—the Hyuugas.

He had searched for nine, long years. But, there was still nothing. Nothing at all. Sure, he had found out soon that the older Hyuuga had been abducted by the Alice Organisation, but Tsubasa and Mikan hadn't found anything during their mission there. He had hoped that they would at least encounter him, considering that he had been on guard duty (according to the information he had dug out), but they hadn't. Aside from this piece of information, he could not find any more leads. The younger Hyuuga, on the other hand, seemed like she had disappeared off the face of the Earth. All information of her had been deleted—it was as if someone had planned this all along. The murders, the abduction, and the missing information—it was all too convenient. It couldn't be a coincidence.

Persona was sure. It was him who had done it.

Burying his face into his hands, Persona closed his eyes and sighed. "Natsume, where the hell—" The man stopped mid-sentence, laughing darkly when he realised what he had said wrong.

"Scratch that. Where in hell are you?"

A/N: When I was writing the scene whereby Natsume has a fever, I actually got one. I'm still a little feverish, but I'm feeling a whole lot better. If you spot any mistakes, do tell me yeah?Well anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter; did it get you grabbing on your seats to know more secrets? ;) The story's full of 'em, if you hadn't noticed. Full of twists and knots. Any guesses to who "them" and "him" is, people?

How about a review to make me feel better, hm? :3 Thanks for reading!