[FFML] [xover][Kodocha/Alice Academy/RoD/GK] Sana's Alice, Chapter 3.

[Henry Cobb]

[xover][Kodocha/Alice Academy/RoD/GK] Sana's Alice, Chapter 3.
By Henry J. Cobb

Gakuen Alice is the creation of Higuchi Tachibana.  Kodomo no Omocha is the
creation of Miho Obana.  Read or Dream is the creation of Hideyuki
Kurata. Ginban Kaleidoscope is the creation of Rei Kaibara.  This parody is
not intended to cause any damage to these properties.

Previously: Misako Kurata's latest bestselling book in Japan, "My Daughter
and I", tells how Sana Kurata, her eleven year old adopted daughter, came
to be the co-star of the television series Kodocha.  She neglected to
mention in her book that Sana had a budding relationship with Akito Hayama
and that Babbit, the sidekick of the television show, is not a puppet or
computer generated image but an actual small plastic bat/rabbit sentient
creature that Sana summons with the use of her superhuman power or Alice.

Because Sana is an Alice she has been forced to transfer to the maximum
security boarding school run by the Japanese government called Alice
Academy.  At the Academy Sana has been entranced, attacked, humiliated,
hazed and idolized.  Although Sana is one of the most famous girls in
Japan, she was unknown at the Academy and is often mistaken for her twin
sister Mikan Sakura, who ran off with a boy from her class.

Sana's clumsy attmept to cure her friend Anita King's book phobia resulted
in the destruction of the Elementary Branch library and so Sana's Alice has
been sealed away with the use of a special bracelet.

The full chapters can be found at
http://www.io.com/~hcobb/anime/fanfic/sana_alice.html

Chapter Three: Skating with the dead

The other students avoided looking at me during the walk to the cafeteria.
As we all stood silently in line I felt like a monster.

It wasn't pity or hatred.  It was horror.  The other students seemed to
dread the thought that the same thing might happen to them.  Were they so
petty?  Their powers were just party tricks.  None of them stood to lose
their best friend.  The comforting presence in the back of my mind was
gone.  I felt empty as I pushed my tray along.

"Is there anything else Miss Kurata?"

"What?"  I looked up at Ms. Takahashi, our robot matron.

"Can I get you anything else?"

"No, this is fine,"  I picked up my lunch tray and headed to my usual
table.

I half expected Anita to show up, with a few smuggled milk cartons, but she
was absent from class today.  She was avoiding me, because of what I'd
done.

I looked down at my tray and tried to summon an appetite.

Somebody sat down next to me, "Are you going to eat all of that?"

"Probably not.  As a two star I get more than enough,"  I looked over at
her tray and saw that it had even more food than mine.  It was Hotaru, one
of the two students ranked at three stars in my class.

"Great, I'm famished,"  She picked up her chopsticks and looked over my
tray.

Two other students sat down across from us.

"I don't know what Hotaru's game is, but you don't have to sit at the
pariah table," I fended off Hotaru's chopsticks with my own.  She didn't
seem to be really serious about this game, but hadn't my plate started with
three tempura shrimp?

"Pariah?"  Anna asked, "I'm also banned from using my Alice, but I wouldn't
put it that way."

"Oh sorry," I looked up at Anna and Nonoko, "I didn't mean it that way."

Anna grabbed my bracelet in her hands, "Don't let this get you down.  If we
didn't have great powers it wouldn't be worth restricting us."

"Are we just our powers?"  I pulled my hand back and thought about the
other things that Mr. Jinno had said, "Didn't he say that Anita's mother
used to be a student here?"

Nonoko looked up from her lunch, "He said that was a mistake."

"He's a bad actor.  Take the word of a professional here.  Won't Anita be
excited to finally get a clue about her past?"

"You'll have to be the one to tell her," Hotaru made another probing attack
at my tray.

"Oh," I parried her chopsticks with my own.  It was my fault that Anita was
absent.  How could I face her again?

"He also said your sister and your family,"  Anna leaned forwards, "Was
that part a mistake?"

"No, he really meant it, but he couldn't know my Mama.  She never left
Kusatsu until she went to college in Tokyo."

"Are you sure he didn't mean your and Mikan's real parents?"  Nonoko asked.

"I guess if they were Alices, they should have been students here,"  I
looked down at my lunch.  There wasn't much left.  "Oh look, Sumire is
talking with Ruka," I pointed over to were Sumire had taken Hotaru's usual
seat as Hotaru had taken Anita's.

"Oh, she can have her fun.  I'll win in the end."

I took advantage of Hotaru's distraction to grab a bowl of noodles off her
tray and slurp them down in one gulp.

"Are you okay Sana?"

I tried to respond to Anna, but I was choking.  That never happened to me
no matter how fast I ate.

"But you should be careful who you steal from,"  Hotaru elbowed me in the
gut and I gulped the noodles down.

"Spicy!"  I grabbed my glass of water and carefully sipped from it.

Misaki Harada from the middle school was waiting for me after class.  She
looked at my new bracelet, then up to my face, "They really did it to you.
They're always coming down on us Special Ability types.  Come on, I've got
somebody you can talk to about this," She grabbed my arm that didn't have
the bracelet.

"Us?"

"You're not the first one to have to deal with that thing."

I followed her to the auditorium then down the stairs to the basement.  It
was mostly a single large room with a skating rink.  At that moment there
was only a single skater on the ice, a highschool girl with violet eyes
and long blue hair tied back in twin ponytails, much like my own hairstyle.
Next to the rink there was a golden eyed brown haired girl who looked a
little too young to be in my class.

The younger girl looked up as we walked up and turned off her boom-box
which had been playing "My Heart Will Go On", "Hey Tazusa, it's Misaki and
Sana!"

"Huh?" The girl named Tazusa stopped her ice dancing routine and skated
over to us, "You're that girl with the TV show aren't you?  My sister Yoko
is a big fan of yours," she nodded towards the younger girl.

"You were on TV also, in the Olympics..."  I stopped as I noticed that
Tazusa wore the same sort of bracelet that I did.

"It's great that you already know each other.  I'll leave you two to talk
about Sana's little problem," Misaki waved and vanished.

"She's always doing that," Tazusa turned to me and looked at my bracelet,
"Alice problems?"

"It's Babbit, he won't shut up, so the teacher shut him up with this."

"A voice you can't get away from?  I can see why Ms Harada sent you to me.
Yoko, this is serious stuff so I don't think you should..."  Tazusa looked
at her sister, who had already picked up the boom-box and started walking
away, "Could you at least wait for me to finish my requests?"

"I know when you don't want me around," Yoko said over her shoulder, "Just
get me Sana's autograph please."

"The telepaths say they're frightened by the empaths.  At times like this I
see what they mean," Tazusa turned back to me, "Let me get my skates off
and we can talk.  But first, do you frighten easily?"

"No."

"Are you scared of ghosts?"

"No, no, I'm a big girl."

"That's strange," Tazusa smiled evilly at me, "because everybody I've
explained my Alice to around here has been very very afraid.  I've only had
to say something like ``Let me show you how it works'' twice."

"D - don't you have an Alice for skating?  What's so frightening about that?"

"That would be great, wouldn't it?  No, I'm afraid that I don't have an
Alice for skating, at least not anymore.  It's a long story.  I'll give you
one last chance to bail before unloading it on you."

"I can handle it, but I know you now.  You're that figure skating champion
with an angel's smile and a devil's soul who failed to win a single medal."

"People who live in the public eye shouldn't quote the tabloid press."

"I don't have to worry about that here.  The media is shut out by the
government."

"None of the other students understand how that is the single best thing
about this Alice Academy," she smiled more gently, "Follow me and I'll tell
you the Tazusa Sakurano story.  You've had your Alice all of your life?"

"Babbit showed up when I was six.  I had drawn pictures of him for a few
years before then, but I didn't think he was real until people started
responding to him."

"And you managed to evade the Academy all these years?  In my case I had no
idea I was an Alice until I was sixteen.  I had been figure skating for
most of my life, on my mundane talents, and had even gotten to
international competition.  It was during a match in Canada that I fell
over and hit my head."

"On the ice?  That must have been painful."

"Unlike the hockey players, we figure skaters don't get helmets for
protection or sticks to steady ourselves with.  Everything seemed fine when
I woke up in the infirmary but over the next several hours I started
hearing a voice in my head."

"You've got a telepathy Alice?"

"No.  Well kind of, in an odd sense.  Here's where it gets scary.  The
voice in my head was a dead boy."

"What?"

"I've got the Ghost Capture Alice.  His name was Pete Pamps and he had died
just as I was falling onto the ice.  I had never heard of Alices so I was
sure I was going mad, except that he was helping me in things like English
and my other subjects.  He also had an Alice, but I didn't notice that
until he was gone."

"Gone, gone where?"

"Wherever dead spirits go I guess.  But that's getting ahead of the story.
When I first found out there was a boy inside my head, seeing and hearing
and feeling everything I did, I freaked out.  I was literally beating my
head against walls to hurt him.  Then I found out that he couldn't stand
tomatoes."

"Tomatoes?"

"Pete couldn't stand the taste of them and for a while I was on an almost
entirely tomato diet, but still he was helping me out all he could.  He
helped me redo my entire routine not once but twice and for the first time
I found I could visualize an entire routine and the moves I could do.
Well, just let me show you."

I looked up at the highschool dorm, "Couldn't you show me on the ice?"

"Not anymore.  Come in, I've got a video in my room."

Tazusa first showed me a video of another skater, "What do you think?"

"It was very nice, I guess."

"It should be, It won her a gold medal, now here's mine."

I was puzzled for a few minutes then pointed at the screen, "You're skating
with somebody invisible."

"No, it's all in my head."

"But look there.  He just picked you up!"

"Sorry, it's a jump.  I went over this video with my coach and we
determined that it was just physically possible for me to do all of these
moves.  In my head I was skating with Pete and on the ice I was borrowing
his Alice of visualization, balance and location sense to pull it off.  The
judges didn't know what to think of it so I didn't get a medal, but now
most of them have signed a petition to have me awarded a special honor from
the International Skating Union for my performance."

"You borrow Alices?"

"Only of the ghosts I capture and only while I have them.  I'm a meta-Alice
like your sister.  I'm not sure if I could capture the ghost of a non-Alice
even if I wanted to."

"Wait, I thought you said you accidently used your Alice.  Where's the want
in that?"

"No, looking back at it, it's always been my choice, but now I can't trust
myself to even take this bracelet off, in case some idle whim triggers my
Alice again."

"But if you could have any Alice you wanted, why wouldn't you use it?"

"Not all ghosts are as friendly as Pete was.  Getting back to my story it was
during the awards ceremony that Pete passed away.  I mean he was already
dead, but his ghost stopped working or passed on to the next life or
paradise or whatever.  Knowing Pete, I like to think he was taken up to
Heaven.  So I whispered something to myself and him and he didn't respond.
I figured he was playing a little game or something and I let it slide.
After a week of silence in my head it wasn't so funny."

"Did you go crazy?"

"Even worse, I went back to Canada.  I latched onto some dinky little match
there and begged and begged my coach until he took me there.  The day
before the match I ran off.  Pete's parents found me sobbing at his grave,
begging him to say just one word, even if it was goodbye."

"Ouch."

"I knew them from Pete's dreams, so I told them I was a friend of Pete's
from Japan and they assumed that I had met him while he was a student in
Japan.  We had gone to schools just a kilometer from each other.  I had
probably passed him on the street a few times and never knew it.  Not that
I would have paid him any attention at the time.  I was a pretty stuck up
little girl."

"His dreams?"

"A side effect of my Alice.  I get to visit the ghost's dreams and a lot of
them are about their previous lives.  I started out as a voice in his head,
as he was a voice in mine while awake and after awhile I started to have a
physical presence in his dreams.  It was getting pretty intense there at
the end, but you're too young for that."

"Did you ever kiss him?"

"Never while awake.  Like I said, I met Pete's parents at his grave and I
went back to their house and we talked about Pete.  They gave me that
picture of his."

"Who's the girl in the other picture frame?"

"My second ghost.  I'm just about to get to her.  I collect these like
campaign medals, at least I guess that's what Pete would call them.  After
I went back to my hotel room that night I felt charged up for the first
time since losing Pete.  The next day I won the match, unfortunately."

"Unfortunately?"

"That's where that girl comes in.  She won second place and felt that her
life was over so she went back to her dressing room and threw her life
away.  At that very moment I was feeling empty, consumed by grief and I
reached out for somebody who would understand my grief and captured my
second ghost."

"So you choose the ghost you want?"

"Yes, I grabbed Pete as I knew I was falling and desperately wanted the
power of perfect balance, and I got it, along with Pete.  Her Alice and
personality weren't so pleasant."

"Oh."

"The Academy was already tracking me down after my Olympic performance and
they helped a lot with the second ghost, but still it was a hundred days
and nights of hell.  The bracelet turned off her Alice, but I still had to
deal with her voice.  At the end I think I managed to talk some sense into
her, but she was never happy about being undead."

"A hundred days?"

"Yes, I've had two ghosts and each time they went away a hundred days to
the minute after they died.  One of the boys in my class joked that I
should make my senior project about being a detective who solves murders a
hundred days after they've been committed.  I asked him if he'd volunteer
to help me test that and it shut him up."

"Senior project?"

"You won't have to worry about that for a few years, but every student has
to come up with a plan to use their Alice in the real world outside the
gates before they graduate.  The joke in the highschool is that the
students who fail to come up with a project are condemned to remain at the
school as teachers."

"In that case I already know what mine will be, I'll just summon up Babbit
and we'll have a TV show again or do puppet theater or something.  Just as
long as he'll behave."

"I'm not sure I'm the right student to help you then.  I can't imagine what
I would be like if I had never used my Alice, but I dread the thought of
inviting another stranger into my head.  I am frightened half to death of
everything that I am."

On the way back to my dorm I thought about what Tazusa had said.  She used
her Alice while asleep and I used Babbit in my sleep, but I didn't remember
it. Perhaps I could do something about that.

Hotaru was sitting in front of our dorm, reading "My Daughter and I",
"Tazusa's Alice is key.  Pity you were wearing that bracelet at the time."

"Why would I need my Alice?  All we did was talk."

"Yes, that's the pity,"  Hotaru didn't look up from the book about my life.

I decided I'd had just about about enough from Hotaru that day.  I ignored
her at dinner and when I returned to my room our robot matron was waiting for
me.

"It's not healthy for a growing Alice to be constrained all the time like
this.  I can remove your bracelet, but you must not use your Alice outside
your room.  Do you understand me, young lady?"

"Yes Ms. Takahashi," I held out my arm and she removed the bracelet and
walked away with it.

I could feel Babbit starting up, but I held him back.  Not yet please.

I took off my school uniform, turned off the light, lay down in my bed,
glanced to the window then closed my eyes and concentrated.  Babbit is
outside my window.  Babbit is outside my window.  I repeated the thought
over and over again as I drifted off to sleep.

I appeared outside Sana's window and looked in on her.  She seemed to be
sleeping peacefully.

Oh good, it worked.

"Is that you Sana?"

Yes.  I'm kind of fuzzy because I'm asleep, but I'm seeing what you're
seeing.

"Are you sure this is okay?  You promised Ms. Takahashi you wouldn't use
your Alice outside your room."

I'm in my bed.  How much more inside my room could I be?

"Okay, but why am I outside?"

I want a bat's eye view of the school.  My tour with Yuu got cut off when I
bonked him on the noggin.

"Are you sure you can handle flying?"

I've flown with Mama on her overseas book tours.

"Yes, but like this?"  I took off then folded my wings and dove down the
side of the building.

Aiiiiiiiii!

I pulled out of my dive a meter off the ground and started to climb.

Don't do that.  You almost woke me up.

"So where do you want to start?"

Why not retrace my steps today?

"Good enough,"  I flew over the auditorium and then towards the highschool
dorm.

How far have you gone before?

"I'm now 412 meters from your side.  It's a new record.  Are you feeling
any strain?"

No, feels fine here.  You've never gone this far before?

"I'm here for you, not the entire world."

That's sweet of you.

"It's selfish.  If you're taken out I go poof.  Look who's on the roof of
the highschool dorm,"  I landed near Tazusa and waited.

She was following a dot of light in the sky with binoculars, "Korean
Airlines to Seoul, right on schedule,"  She wrote something in her notebook
then turned to me, "Hello Babbit."

"Hello Ms. Sakurano."

"Call me Tazusa please.  What brings you out here?"

"Sana is trying the trick you suggested of using her Alice in her sleep.
She wanted to see the school from above."

"So Sana told you all about me?"

"I remember what she remembers, but it is a little fuzzy because her Alice
was blocked at the time."

"Fuzzy?"

"Normally I have perfect memory of everything she or I see.  It's one of my
many talents."

Ask her about the binoculars.

"Sana would like to know what your observations are about, if you don't
mind."

"It's just something I picked up from Pete."

"Well I promised I'd show Sana the school so I'd best be going."

"Happy flying.  I bet Pete would have loved the power to fly like you, even
if indirectly."

Why did you run away from her so fast?

"She seemed to want to be alone with her memories of Pete."

Oh.

"Let's go visit Misako."

You can do that?

"It's only twenty kilometers from here.  Let me know if it starts to be any
strain and I'll turn back instantly."

But I want to see Mama.

"Even if I can only get a little way past the school wall I can call her
collect and arrange to meet her at a coffee shop or something."

You're a smart bat.

"I only use the vast reaches of your brain that you never touch."

Is that an insult or a compliment?

"Take it as a challenge to live up to your potential please."

I wouldn't want to crowd you out.

"There's little danger of that, but you really don't need me."

Yes I do.  I need you very much Babbit.  I order you to tell me when I'm
doing anything that would block you.

"As you wish.  Here comes the fence."

There was a faint tingle then ZAP!  I was trapped and it felt like bolts of
lightning were ripping my wings off.

Aaaaaaah!

"S - Sana, turn off your Alice!"

But she kept screaming as I was slowly shredded.  Finally it all faded to
black.

I jumped out of bed and landed on my face.  I lay there for a minute while
it felt like bowling balls where smashing into my head from either side.

Then I looked around.  I could see the light from the corridor coming in
from under my door and I crawled over there.

Finally I got my nose all the way to the door.  I pulled one leg forwards
under me and then the other.  On my knees I reached up until I felt my
doorknob and leaned on it as the door opened.

I fell out into the corridor.  It was too bright, I shut my eyes and curled
up with my face to the floor.  I could feel my leg kick something and my
door closed with a click.  I was fairly sure I'd left my key inside.

I considered screeming for help, but my own ragged gasps pounded in my ears
too loudly already.  There was nothing for it, I'd have to go to her.

With my eyes tightly closed I reached forwards until I could feel the
corner of the stairs then I worked my way up hand over hand until I found
the handrail.

I pulled myself up with both hands and felt fowards with one foot into
empty air.  With a leap of faith I shifted my weight forwards and fell to
the next step.  I tried counting the steps, but the numbers wouldn't stand
still in my mind and I didn't remember how many there were anyway.

Hours later it seemed I stumbled when there wasn't another stair and lost
my grip on the end of the handrail.  I collasped to the floor and looked
down the corridor.  I couldn't make out the nametags, but only one door had
a light showing under it.  The girl who couldn't sleep.  I crawled over
that way.

Finally I could see the light under her door and I knocked on it.

"Who is it?"

"Help me," I croaked too loudly then covered my ears too late.

Hotaru opened her door, stood still in front of my face for a minute or
so and then she said, "You look a mess.  What happened?"

I didn't look up from Hotaru's bear slippers. I didn't want to risk losing
my balance sprawled out on the floor, "Babbit tried to fly over the
school's outer wall."

"I see that you've met the Academy's barrier Alice.  Let's see what I've
got,"  She picked me up and sat me down on her bed.

I fell over on my side and thankfully rested my head on her pillow instead
of falling off her bed.

Hotaru read the labels on some prescription pill bottles on her nightstand,
"Too strong.  Let's try some Acetaminophen."

She held my head up while she gave me the pills and held up a glass of
water for me to gulp down.  Then she turned off her light and lay down
beside me.

I closed my eyes and after a long while the throbbing in my head faded away
to oblivion.

The next thing I knew Hotaru was removing my underwear.

"What?"

"Time to get ready for class," she shoved me into her shower and followed.

I felt a bit of life return to my foggy head as she scrubbed me all over
then toweled me off and sat me in her chair.  She stood behind me to comb
out my hair then tie it up in twin pigtails.

"Your hair is short, how do you know how to do this?"

"I had plenty of practice with Mikan.  Can you dress yourself or do you
need help with that also?"

I looked down and noticed that I was in fresh underwear.  Hers no doubt, "I
can handle the rest."

"Good."

We both put on school uniforms of hers, but while she had a three-star pin,
I didn't have any two-star pins on me.

"Uh, I think I locked myself out of my room."

"Come along."

I followed her upstairs and she scarcely broke stride before opening my
door with a click.

"How did you do that?"

"A magician never reveals her secrets.  Get your bag.  Can you make it to
the school on your own?"

"I guess."

"Great, because I need breakfast.  I'll see you there."

I transferred my two-star pin to the uniform Hotaru had lent me and grabbed
my bag.

Ms. Takahashi was waiting at my door, "There you are young lady.  I was
afraid that you'd run off and forgotten this,"  She held up the bracelet.

"Please," I held out my arm and she locked it back on.

My first two classes passed by in a daze and then Mr. Jinno came in and
seemed rather smug.

"Miss Kurata, how was your little excursion last night?  What did you think
of the school's defenses?"

"They're very effective sir."

"Would you like to try them again?"

"No sir."

"Do you promise to behave yourself and give up these little escape
attempts?"

"Yes sir."

"Then come here."

I walked to the front of the class and he removed my bracelet.

On the way back to my seat I could feel Babbit attempt to start and then he
seemed to shrug and go back to sleep.  I didn't use my Alice at all for the
rest of the day, but Babbit was there to wake me up the next morning.

Hotaru was waiting at the dorm door and looked up at Babbit, "So you're an
Alice again?"

"Aren't we all born this way?  Or may-bee it's something special in our
diet, like royal jelly, that turns us into Alices?"

"Sorry", Hotaru started walking beside me, "It's all genetic.  With a tiny
contribution from maternal environment."

"Then identical twins would have exactly the same power and Mikan doesn't
have Babbit, does she?"

"Babbit isn't in your genes."

"Well duh, he's a bat.  He doesn't wear jeans or other kinds of pants."

Hotaru took her copy of "My Daughter and I" out from her bookpack, opened
to her bookmark and started reading.

"I think you're being too silly for her, Sana."

"Well, you're just a bat and according to her, you don't even exist."

"It's good to see you're so energetic,"  Hotaru flipped the page, "Let's
put that energy to work after class.  If you do a good job, I'll show you
the Alice that's closest to Babbit.  If you added that wrinkle to him, he
could be quite useful."

"But Babbit isn't wrinkled.  He's smooth inflated plastic, see?"

Hotaru didn't look up from the book and kept walking.  I wondered how she
kept to the path.  The few times I'd tried reading while walking, I had
bumped into things.

After class I turned to Hotaru, "You said you needed me for something?"

She held up a slip of paper, "Yes, let's go to the Middle School."

"Huh?"

"Somebody destroyed our library so I got a pass to go use theirs.  Promise
not to destroy this library?"

"I'll be careful."

"Good."

I looked around the library for a few minutes then turned back to Hotaru.

"Ready to go?"  She had two books.

"That was quick."

"We're not done yet," Instead of heading for the building exit, she went up
the stairs.

"Are you going to show me to some of your Middle School boys?"

"Not today", Hotaru opened a door and I followed her into a room.

"This is a recording studio!"

"One of the perks the Middle School has over us.  I suppose nobody wants to
hear what the Elementary students have to say,"  Hotaru took some pages out
of her bookbag, "Why don't we record this?"

I looked over the music, "And when you're running scared, think back on
the time we shared and know that it meant nothing.  It meant nothing to
me,"  I looked up at her, "This is a bit edger than my usual stuff."

"So grow up.  And anyway that's my lyrics, yours are these lines."

"You also sing?"

"Try me."

"But won't we need a lot of other students to play all of these
instruments?"

"Can't Babbit play some of them?"

"Oh, right,"  I summoned up a bunch of Babbits with little fake musical
instruments.

"Can't he use the real ones?"

"Babbit?"

"Sure, but you may need to summon up more of me, because some of these take
multiple Babbits to play.  I'm not as big or strong as a human."

The next morning Hotaru met me outside my door and took me to her room.

"What's up?"

"I just wanted to show you that your fans haven't forgotten you," she sat
at her computer and pulled up one of the most popular fansite blogs about
me.

"A sneak peek at Sana's new album?"  I grabbed her mouse and scrolled down,
"He's got a mp3 of that recording we made and a fake album cover with the
two of us?"  The picture showed Hotaru and me leaning against each other
and crying under the title "Teardrops on Kittens".  The tears were falling
on an orange kitten we held in our hands.  The kitten was looking somewhat
damp and very put upon, "I didn't pose for this.  Did you get Mikan to do
it?"

"No, it's all photo editing."

"How did he get all of this?"

"That was asked in the blog comments and he relied that he has a secret
source, but actually it's just because he had a weak password.  Your
fanboys are so predictable.  And now it's bouncing all over the filesharing
networks so even the Academy can't stop it."

"I can't even send email to Mama and you get to do this?  If you'd use your
powers for good just once I'm sure you could solve all the world's
problems."

"I do intend to solve all of the world's problems.  I'm just waiting for
you to pull the trigger."

"Me?  I can't make enough Babbits to help everybody."

"You need to wake up to your real power first.  Perhaps when your sister
answers this call she can straighten you out."

"Those lyrics, they were a message for Mikan?  But wherever she is, I'm
sure she doesn't have time to browse the net."

"She might be sitting in a cafe in Rome, but this should be big enough to
hit the general media."

"What gives you the right to do these things?"

"You agreed to help me and so I'll do as I promised in return."

"You'll show Sana the Alice like me?"  Babbit asked.

"Yes, after class."

At lunch we were joined by Anna and Nonoko as usual.

Hotaru looked around, "It seems that our dear Miss King is still cutting out
on class.  Don't you miss her horribly Sana?"

"She's hiding because I was horrible to her,"  I looked down at my plate
and blocked Hotaru's attempt to steal one of my meatballs.

"Let's stage an intervention."

"What did you have in mind?"  Anna asked, then her eyes grew wide as Hotaru
replied by humming something, "You wouldn't."

"Count me out," Nonoko looked away, "I've killed Anita enough already."

I couldn't place the tune, so I summoned Babbit and asked him, "What is
that song?"

"It's the Teddy Bears' Picnic," He shrugged his wings.

Next chapter: Bear and Prince