This story is based off of the series Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. You don't need to know about the show in order to understand what's going on; I'll be explaining everything as the story progresses. I just wanted to give credit to the series since I'm using the basic plot of it. Also, there will be major OOCness, but I hope it's not too bad.

Throughout the story, you'll notice that some of the last names of the Tennis no Ouji-sama characters are different. This will be explained later on. And, because I can't seem to call Tezuka by his first name, Kunimitsu, Tezuka is now his first name.

Disclaimer: I do not own Tennis no Ouji-sama or Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

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Every year, there is the Watanagashi festival to honor the guardian of Hinamizawa, Oyashiro-sama. And every year, on the same day, one person dies and another goes missing.

The town of Hinamizawa was very hot.

That was one of the first things Fuji Syuusuke noticed when he first moved to the small village. It was also extremely under populated. There was only one school, which only held one classroom for all twelve grades. Inside the school was one teacher, in charge of teaching all the students herself. However, because it was so small, it was fairly easy to make friends.

Fuji was instantly welcomed by the small crowd of kids; for them, having a new student was one of the most exciting things to happen to them during the school year. Fuji had been told upon arrival that the student whose desk he now occupied had transferred, so the kids were all too eager to make a new friend. Especially one who would help them with their work.

The one teacher often had her hands full with the younger kids, so Fuji instantly began helping his new friends with their work whenever they needed it, even though some of them were a little older than he was. They gave him the nickname of 'tensai' not only because he was good at school, but at a variety of sports as well. Things seemed to be livening up in the small town.

"Hey, Fuji," Echizen Ryoma, the youngest of them all, said during lunch. "What are you doing after school?"

"Hmm…" Fuji thought for a moment. "I don't think I'm doing anything. How come?"

Ryoma swallowed a bite of his rice ball. "I'm going to go to my secret place and look for treasure. Do you want to come?"

"You should go, Fuji," Sonozaki Tezuka said, taking a bite of his own lunch. "It's not often that he invites someone to go with him. You should consider it an honor."

"Aw, I want to go too!" Furude Eiji said, bouncing up and down in his seat. "Can I? Can I?"

"Not today, Eiji," his best friend, Oishi Syuuichirou, said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We've already been with him before, remember? Now it's Fuji's turn." He smiled. "We'll go do something instead, okay?" Eiji was disappointed for a moment, but then agreed.

After school, the five went their separate ways: Eiji and Oishi went off to do something together, Fuji followed Ryoma towards the outskirts of town, and Tezuka went home, saying something about his grandmother wanting to see him.

Ryoma and Fuji walked for quite some time, until they were a ways away from the most popular part of town. Up ahead, all Fuji could see was a large trash heap, and was about to ask Ryoma where they were going when the boy stopped. "We're here," he announced.

Fuji blinked. "You mean…you hunt for treasure here?" he asked, staring at all the trash. Ryoma nodded. "You can find a lot of cool stuff here," he said, making his way towards the pile. "You can look too if you want, or you can just wait until I'm done. I won't be long." With that, he disappeared into the trash.

"I think I'll wait here," Fuji said to himself as he sat down to wait for Ryoma. All of his friends were a bit strange, he decided, but he enjoyed their company nonetheless. After a time, Ryoma's head popped up from the debris. "Hey Fuji, can you come here for a sec?"

Fuji did as he was asked, and was soon standing in front of an old, broken-down car. "There's a tennis racquet underneath there. Can you see it?" Fuji nodded. "I have a few balls at home, but I don't have a racquet so I can't play. It would be great if I could get that one, but I can't seem to get to it." He looked at Fuji. "What do you think I should do?"

Fuji looked once more at the tennis racquet. The handle was sticking out from beneath the car, but no matter how hard he pulled, it wouldn't come loose. "Maybe if we had an axe or something, we could cut some of the car and get to it," he said. "It looks old enough that it shouldn't be hard to cut a chunk out of it."

Ryoma nodded. "Alright, I'll go see if I can find one." He ran off in search of something they could use, leaving Fuji behind. The tensai decided to wander around while he waited, and found himself back up towards the top of the pile.

"Well, hello there."

Fuji jumped and turned around, to see a man holding a camera standing behind him.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," the man said with a laugh. "I'm Momoshiro Takeshi, a freelance photographer. I've never seen you before. Are you new?" Fuji nodded. "I'm Fuji Syuusuke."

"It's nice to meet you," Momoshiro said, shaking his hand. He glanced past Fuji to the trash heap. "Have you heard of the dam project?" he asked suddenly.

"You mean when they were going to build a dam here a few years ago?"

Momoshiro nodded. "It wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but the whole town would have been underwater if the project was completed. Because of that, the townspeople all protested the development. Then, almost five years ago, the incident happened." Momoshiro lowered his voice, and it seemed as if he was almost talking to himself. "They still haven't found one of the arms…"

"Um…" Fuji began, but was cut off.

"Oh! Look at the time!" Momoshiro said, looking at his watch. "I really need to be going. It was nice meeting you!" he added with a wave as he ran off. Then, once again, Fuji was alone.

"That was strange…" he said to himself as he ventured back into the trash. He glanced around, not really sure what he was looking fore. His eyes settled on a stack of old magazines. He went over and picked one up, flipping through until he saw what he was looking for:

Violent Murder at Hinamizawa Dam Construction Site.

Fuji's eyes widened, and he was about to read the article when a sudden shadow loomed over him. He glanced up and saw Ryoma standing over him, holding an axe. He jumped. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry," Ryoma said, jumping off the old stool he was standing on and landing beside Fuji. "I got the axe you asked for."

"Hey, Ryoma…" Fuji asked cautiously, setting the magazine down. "Did something…happen here?"

Ryoma's face darkened slightly. "I don't know," he said flatly. Then he smiled. "Well, shall we get to work?"

"Sure, but…it's kind of late now, so how about we come back tomorrow?" Fuji asked, gesturing towards the setting sun. "It'll be easier to work when it's completely light out, don't you think?"

"You're right," Ryoma said, setting the axe down. "We'll come back tomorrow, then."

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"Hey Fuji, you're going to the Watanagashi Festival tonight, aren't you?"

It was several days after the expedition at the trash heap, and the group was in school. Fuji blinked at the question. "The what?"

"You mean you don't know about the Watanagashi?" Eiji asked, a look of disbelief on his face.

"It makes sense," Oishi said. "I mean, he did just move here, remember?" He turned to Fuji. "The Watanagashi Festival is held once a year to honor the guardian of the town, Oyashiro-sama," he explained. "We're all going, so do you want to come? There's even going to be a performance at the shrine."

"I'd love to go," Fuji said. He assumed that the shrine Oishi was talking about was the Furude Shrine; the one that Oishi and Eiji lived at; since neither of them had parents, they lived together at the shrine. Eiji was the last living member of the Furude family, one of the Three Great Houses of Hinamizawa. The Sonozaki family was the main one, of which Tezuka was a part of.

The five met up later that night, and had a fun time at the festival. They watched as the local priestess performed at the shrine, and then it was time for the main part of the festival. They all went down to the river carrying balls of cotton; there were already many balls sailing downstream when they arrived.

"When you put the cotton into the river, you say 'Thank you very much' to thank Oyashiro-sama for looking after us for another year," Tezuka explained. "The cotton also absorbs all the bad things and sends them away." Though Fuji was a bit skeptical about the whole thing, he joined his friends in the cotton drifting.

He decided to take a walk when they were done, and began going along the riverbank. After walking for a few minutes, he saw Momoshiro talking with a woman down below. He decided to go and say hello.

"Ah, Fuji-kun," Momoshiro said, smiling upon his arrival. "Did you enjoy the festival?" Fuji nodded. "Well, I guess this makes you an official member of Hinamizawa now. Right, Ann?" He looked at his companion, who nodded. "This is Tachibana Ann. She's a nurse at the local clinic."

Fuji introduced himself and shook her hand before saying, "I have a question to ask you about the dam construction." He hesitated for a moment. "There was a murder, wasn't there? Where the victim was chopped to pieces?"

Momoshiro nodded. "Like I said, there were many protests about the dam; so many, in fact, that the construction was halted for a bit to sort things out. It was during that time that the person in charge of the construction was killed. I believe it was on the night of the Watanagashi."

"And since then, it's been happening every year," Ann said. Fuji looked at her, and she began to elaborate. "Many said that the murder was because of Oyashiro-sama's curse; that the dam builder was killed because the guardian deity was passing judgment on those who wished to harm the village. Every year since then, on the night of the Watanagashi, someone is killed and another goes missing.

"The year after the first murder, a man and his wife fell off a cliff during their vacation. They were both supporters of the dam, and the woman's body was never found, so she was considered missing since no one actually saw her fall. The year after, an old woman was killed and a boy went missing. And last year, the priest at the shrine was killed, while his wife went missing. All of them were somehow involved in the dam, and it's now been called Oyashiro-sama's curse. This will be the fifth year since the murder of the worked in charge of the dam, and everyone's wondering if it'll happen again this year."

Ann smiled. "Do you believe in the curse, Fuji-kun?"

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The next day at school, things proceeded like normal. All of Fuji's friends were talking about the festival, and he was having a hard time getting them to concentrate to he could help them with their work. He had just gotten them to settle down and was in the middle of helping Ryoma with a math problem when the teacher came up to him, saying he had a visitor waiting for him outside.

Fuji walked to the front of the building a saw a man waiting for him. He wore large glasses that were reflecting the sun, so his eyes were concealed. "Fuji Syuusuke, correct?" he asked, whipping out a badge from his pocket. "I am detective Inui Sadaharu. It will be more comfortable to talk in my car, where it's air conditioned." He gestured to the old-looking white vehicle he had parked next to the school, and they got in.

"I have some questions for you, if you don't mind," Inui began, pulling out a photograph. "Do you know this man?" Fuji looked at the picture; it was Momoshiro. "Yes, I saw him at the festival last night."

"And what about her?" Inui then pulled out a picture of Ann, the woman who had been with Momoshiro. "Yes, I saw her, too."

"About what time?"

"I'm not sure, but I would say about ten thirty," Fuji replied. "May I ask what all this is about, Inui-san?" The detective sighed.

"Last night, those two in the photographs were both killed."

Footnotes:

Watanagashi literally means 'cotton drifting'.

Furude and Sonozaki are two of the Three Great Houses in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, so I decided to leave the families in the story and just change some of the last names of the Tennis no Ouji-sama characters to fit. This is mostly so that I don't get confused while writing. The third family isn't important in this story.

Author's notes:

Well, hopefully you aren't too freaked out at this point. This is just an idea I got and had to write, though I really have no idea what people will think of it. So, please review and let me know if I should continue it or not!