When Persona Falls In Love - Gakuen Alice

Epilogue

It has been 4 years since he visited this place.

Persona touched the coarse surface of the bench under a blossoming cherry blossom tree. His fingers traced a vandalism on the worn out bench.

Hachi & Serio

It did not feel real. He forgot what her touch felt like. Her face in his memory is becoming a blur. He cannot recall what her voice or her groan sounded like.

He shook his head. He needs to focus and clear his mind. There are more things to do nowadays. Especially since the principal wanted more pets.

Persona retired to his room after an eventful day in the academy. He removed his blood-stained coat and perched on his favorite sofa chair by his window.

Suddenly, something rustled from the corner of his dark room. Persona turned his attention to the little toddler who just woke up from her slumber.

This is the weakling he picked up from outside the academy the other day. She recklessly grabbed his hands even when he warned her not to.

Persona knows her. He can recall her. She was that baby from 4 years ago.

He killed her adoptive parents and he wanted to kill her but couldn't. She is the reason why there is a small scar on his arm.

It is his own doing. His alice injured him when he changed his mind and held back the attack to save the girl's life in the very last second.

The girl does not know him. She was barely a year old back then. He knew basing from the lack of life in her eyes that she has no recollection of anything.

She struggled to stand but ended up falling back to her slumped position. She's too weak to stand due to the effects of malnutrition on her fragile body.

Persona wondered how this infant survived for 4 years out there. What kind of people did she meet after he massacred her family? She slowly spoke in a very weak voice.

"You are back." Her gaze fell on his face. "Are you allowing me to stay here?"

Persona gave a small nod as he studied her features. He smirked as the gentle touch of the moon light reached him.

"I am Persona, your master."

The little girl crawled to Persona's side while she repeated what Persona said in a whisper.

"Master..."

She knelt on the floor just beside Persona's feet with her back almost touching the side of Persona's bed. She looked straight into his eyes and touched his hand.

"It's so warm."

She seemed attached to him. It was like she enjoyed feeling him near her. Persona's eyes gazed into the girl's bluish-gray eyes before continuing his simple introduction.

"You are Nobara Ibaragi... my pet."

Upon hearing Persona's declaration of her identity, she rested her head on his lap. Nobara is Persona's property from now on.

She shall have no other joy other than her master's own. Persona's expression momentarily changed into something delicate– like a light smile filled with fondness.

'Bluish-gray...'

His mind rekindled some memory from a not-so-long-ago encounter of something lighter than his usual shade of black.

Maybe that explains why he acted so differently, why he has been troubled all this time, and why he didn't end the little girl's life.

Possibly, he even knew it from the beginning that the 'trash' has always been just a wandering soul.

Hachi has always been just a remnant of some memory that has exceeded the definition of human and was, then, a bit incomplete to be classified as an angel.

The blow of the midnight breeze filled his room. The curtains stirred as the light entered his room.

And, there, just on the coffee table adjacent to where Persona sat with little Nobara, lay a white feather. The only proof of that brief encounter he had with an alice of snow.

'Hachi...'

A snowflake landed just near Nobara's foot. It melted. But soon as the little girl's eyes glanced on the melted snow, it froze. It returned to its original state, just as pure as how it has been.

Alice of Ice.

He knows that she is not her. They are different from each other but he does not mind.

Perhaps he could never find something lighter than black again. Perhaps that numskull's memory won't ever be reborn.

He can let these memories sink to the depths of his heart. However, he has accepted and understood all of it now.

Persona has won. All goals done. Obstacles eliminated. And yet, he can't ever deny that once upon a weird fate's play Persona fell in love...

'Annoying filthy 'trash'...'

His heart whispered as he brushed his hands through the grayish telephone-wire-like hair of the ice princess who slept before his feet.

***END OF STORY***