The first thing Haruhi recognized when she regained consciousness was the sound of a pen scratching against paper. Ordinarily it was not a sound that would have been noticeable, but the room around her was surprisingly still. She shifted on what she was lying on, something rough to the touch and musty, like foliage. And outside wherever she was came what could only be described as bird calls. The disconcerting thing was, however, she could place none of them as belonging to crows or sparrows or any of the birds that typically made their home on the Ouran campus. They sounded without exception more at home in some exotic zoo exhibit.

She wiped the bleariness from her eyes and sat up straight on her bed of palm fronds.

Wait. Palm fronds? It had to be the new cosplay they had neglected to inform her about. Yeah, that was it. . . . Right? A worried, "Kyouya?"

He stopped his note-taking and looked down at her. "Oh, Haruhi. Good to see you're finally awake."

She didn't like the way he said that. And it wasn't just the way the light was glinting off his glasses. Come to think of it, nothing good ever happened in the movies that was preceded by the words, Good to see you're finally awake. "How long have you been up?"

"Oh, not too long," he said vaguely. "I must have metabolized the anesthetic gas faster than the others."

"Gas?" Haruhi racked her brain for what she last remembered before falling to sleep. It came back slowly at first, then all in a rush: the host club and a bunch of irregular, male guests trapped in the third music room with no good explanation as to why they were there except for some mysterious notes. And then . . . Haruhi drew a blank.

"What happened to us?" she said, rotating her sore shoulders and brushing a few stray palm leaves out of her hair. She looked around the spartan cement room where Shirou and the twins continued to sleep soundly under the filtered sunlight. "For that matter, where are we?"

"That's something we'd all like to know," said Kuze from behind her.

Kyouya looked up at the football captain, who was followed by his two teammates. "What did you find out?"

"Only that we're in what looks to be some kind of abandoned military training complex surrounded by jungle. There's fruit all around, so at least we shan't succumb to scurvy, but alas, to my chagrin I could find no oranges. I was, however, able to surmise by the salt in the air that we're on an island of some sort, but I couldn't say where. Just a gut feeling that tells me we're not in Japan anymore, Toto."

"Thank you, Captain Dorothy," Haruhi mumbled, nodding to Shirou who was presently rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "In that case, I'll let you break the news to the munchkin."

Shirou didn't seem to notice much about where he was, though. The first thing he laid eyes on was the twins, who were lying one spooned against the other at his feet. "Aw, gross! Are they always like that?"

"Hikaru, Kaoru, rise and shine," Kyouya said in his most matronly tone of voice, and prodded them with his pen, which only made Hikaru moan and bury his face further into Kaoru's shoulder. Shirou shuddered all the more. "Care to grace us with your conscious presences?"

"Just a few more minutes, Mom. . . ." Kaoru mumbled and tried to wave him off, which had the undesired effect on Hikaru's part of hitting him in the nose.

Tougouin was a little less polite with Akujiro, who was slouched against one wall. "Yo. Wake up," he said as he nudged him with the toe of his shoe.

Akujiro tipped over, bumped his shoulder on the concrete floor, and awoke with a start. "What the—" he said, then started rubbing his shoulder nonchalantly.

When his hand went to his neck to massage the crick out of it, his fingers hit something hard and cold and he stopped. He felt out the shape of it, quickly determining it was some kind of electronic device that encircled his neck like a collar. Then, in horror, he looked up at the rest of them and saw his worst fear was confirmed: he was not alone. "You guys . . . y-you . . . We're all. . . ." He couldn't seem to get the words out.

One by one the room's other inhabitants' hands went to their own throats, and felt the collars around them. "Aw, crap," Haruhi said. "I've seen this movie."

—o—

"Haruhi!" Tamaki wailed, bolting upright and, it seemed, picking up just where he left off before he lost consciousness.

Mori was there at his side in a heartbeat. "You all right?" came his deep, reassuring voice in Tamaki's ears.

The host king pushed himself up. "Never mind me. We have to save Haruhi! Daddy's coming, Haruhi! Those unscrupulous twins have her in the most compromising position yet. We must rescue her dignity, Mori-sempai! She—"

He paused and glanced around himself at his surroundings. A quick head count revealed there to be no twins in sight, and certainly no Haruhi. "Where'd she go?"

"Would you keep it down?" Komatsuzawa groaned from the other side of the room, holding his head as he tenderly readjusted his glasses. "I have the worst headache. . . ."

"Hang in there, President!" Sakyou said.

"I'm sure I have an aspirin around here someplace," Ukyou said.

"It would appear—"

Tamaki nearly jumped out of his skin at the utterly sinister tone of those words uttered from a dark corner of the room which the filtered light did not penetrate. "Jesus Christ, Nekozawa-sempai!" he said, grabbing at his chest. "Would you stop startling me like that? One of these days you're going to send me to an early grave."

Mori, too, was staring at the black magic club president as though unsure from where he had materialized. "Rest assured, Suou-kun, Beelzenev would never allow such a fine plaything as you to escape his clutches so willy-nilly," Nekozawa said, which naturally was only more cause for alarm. Sitting on a crate and leaning against the wall with the cat puppet dangling off one bent knee, he grinned up at them from under the dark bangs of his wig. "But, as I was saying, it would appear that our numbers have been evenly divided into two baseball teams."

"Baseball teams?" Tamaki echoed dumbly while Mori stared with equal desire for clarification.

Nekozawa nodded around the room, a drab, roughly-made structure that might have once served as a communications tower for some army some unknown time ago. "Tally those of us remaining yourself, Suou, and you will see that we number nine, and further that there are nine of us still missing."

Tamaki did as suggested, and sure enough he came up with the same number. There was himself and Mori and Nekozawa, the journalism club, Honey sleeping soundly in what might have been the only even remotely comfortable spot in the entire room, and Kasanoda and Akutaro propped up against one wall and presently drooling on one another.

Scratch that. With a groan on the former's part and a smacking of lips on the latter's they slowly came out of it. Each looked at the warm body next to him, nonchalantly stretched, did a double-take, and promptly jumped half-way across the room in the opposite direction. "Get offa me, you homo!" said Akutaro and for some reason started smoothing down his mullet while everyone else stared.

"Who are you calling a homo, jacka—Did you . . . Did you drool on me?" said Kasanoda, trying to somehow wipe the shoulder of his uniform jacket without actually touching it.

Akutaro wiped his face. "N-no! That's just wishful thinking—"

"Do you wanna die today, asshole?"

"Fiend, stay away from me! Brother . . . What have they done with my brother?"

"Forget your brother!" Tamaki joined in. "What about my Haruhi?"

Kasanoda rounded on him. "Haruhi's missing?"

Needless to say, all the screaming was driving Komatsuzawa out of what little mind he still had left.

Nekozawa meanwhile was leaning over Honey in concern. It seemed a little disconcerting to him that the other would still be sleeping after all this time. Perhaps whatever had knocked the rest of them out had been a mite too strong for his slight frame. Nekozawa put out a hand to shake Honey's shoulder—

Mori quickly and adamantly shook his head. "If you value your life," he said to Nekozawa, and trailed off.

Nekozawa waited.

"Don't."

"Yeah, trust me, Sempai," Tamaki added with a wince, "he'll be fine. Beelzenev's got nothing on . . . Well, let's just say hell hath . . . Just let him wake up naturally."

"Hey," said Kasanoda, working the kink out of his neck as he came up to them and pulling at his metal collar, "I don't suppose any of you guys know where the hell we are?"

That was when they heard it.

The earsplitting melody of their own doom.

"Hohohoho. . . . Who-hohohoho. . . ." came the high, disembodied laughter of feminine triumph that struck fear in the hearts of menfolk both old and young alike, while the whole building, nay, the whole island shook from the starting up of a rather high-powered motor.

—o—

While their building was thus shaking, all eyes turned to one wall of the room, in which a panel suddenly began to open up, revealing a television screen built into the wall. On it was an insignia Haruhi and the twins—judging by their apprehensive glares—had never seen before, though it did look just a tad familiar, as it was comprised of the letters "O" and "R," which a caption explained to be the same letters on their uniforms that stood for Ouran, all of which surmounted a caption which read simply "survival program".

As they watched, a rotating, silhouetted figure was slowly raised into the picture. Not that anyone in the host club needed to be told who it was. When the rotating stopped and Renge's smiling face appeared, none of them could say they were surprised.

Haruhi's shoulders slumped. "I should have known."

"What? Who is she?" said Kuze.

"Otaku," the twins answered in unison. "And that's all you need to know."

The young woman in question faced them now with hands on her hips. She did not need her trusty megaphone this time. Aside from the impossibly bright smile which even Disneyland's imagineers would have been unable to reproduce, her posture oozed all the authority of a drill sergeant. Which was more than could exactly be said for her outfit. Today it was short, camo shorts, army boots, and a tight, bright orange T-shirt that had the same "O" and "R" printed on it, outlined in glitter. Pigtails stuck out from a camouflaged army cap, there was a stick-on star on her cheek, and a headset completed the ensemble, which she spoke into cheerfully.

"Good morning, everyone!" Renge's voice boomed through the structure's PA system as she made a salute so utterly cute it would have sent Lin Minmei into insulin shock. "Did everyone get a good night's rest? I sure hope you did. You'll need your strength for the trials that await you . . . on the island!"

—o—

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Tamaki blinked. "Wait a gosh darn minute. Did you say island?" He pressed his hands to the screen as though she could hear him through it. "What have you done with us this time, Renge?"

"Hey, get away from the screen," Kasanoda growled, trying to pull him out of the way. "We can't see—"

"You're not the only one who's upset, you know!" said Ukyou.

"Do you have to yell?" yelled Komatsuzawa.

"Mitsukuni. . . ." said Mori.

"Where's my brother!" said Akutaro.

". . . Going to wake him up."

And then everyone else was clamoring for a piece of Renge, so that Tamaki had to shout above them, his cheek pressed to the screen like a kid to a candy store window.

"What's the meaning of this fiasco? Haruhi. . . . What have you done with Haruhi?"

"My, my, Suou-sempai," the young woman on the screen exclaimed, holding her reddening cheeks, "you do have a one-track mind! How noble of you, to be so worried about your true love in this your time of crisis! And they say chivalry is dead."

Kasanoda started at that, and Tamaki blinked, blushed and grinned like he hadn't heard that last bit. "You . . . you can hear me?"

"Of course, I can! You're looking at the latest in two-way, real-time telecommunications technology! Spared no expense." She looked over his shoulder. "Good morning, Honey-sempai. Did you sleep well?"

Everyone turned in fear to see the young man in question rising from his bed of foliage and rubbing his eyes. Tamaki prepared for an explosion, but it never came.

"Mm . . . Yep! Sure did! Thanks for asking, Renge-chan!" a bubbly Honey said instead. He looked up. "Takashi, is it Saturday already?"

The others blanched. "Saturday?"

Komatsuzawa checked his watch in disbelief. "You mean we slept a whole day away?"

"Do we get Asahi on that thing? Ohh, how 'bout Fuji Television?"

"You eighteen were out like little lambs. But never you fear! I wouldn't allow you all to come to harm on my watch. Not yet anyway," she added ominously, while Honey continued to mumble something about Saturday morning cartoons, "not before the real fun starts. I'll leave that up to you. No, all your dear friends are safe and sound in a secure location on the other end of this island. But you don't have to take my word for it. See for yourself."

And so saying, a smaller television screen just to the side of the big one that was projecting Renge's image flickered on, and in it appeared a room similar to the one Tamaki, et al, were standing in, and in that room were the missing nine from the music room.

Tamaki promptly glued himself to that monitor. "Haruhi!"

—o—

Haruhi and the twins started at her name being called. They and the others turned to the smaller television screen next to Renge's and, recognizing their schoolmates, quickly crowded around. "Wow, milord!" said the twins, who were quick to get in front of it. "Can you see us over here?"

"How is everyone doing over there?"

"Are Honey-sempai and Mori-sempai with you?"

"He-e-e-ere!" said Honey, nearly hitting Tamaki in the nose with his raised fist as he squeezed in front of the screen. "I slept the whole Friday away! Can you believe it? And I had the neatest dream—"

"Friday?" said Kaoru while Hikaru poked where he had determined the camera must be. "What day is it?"

"And there were giraffes and elephants and—"

"Yeah, yeah, and soda-pop fountains," grumbled Tamaki. "No one cares."

"It's Saturday," said Kyouya at their backs.

"Saturday?" Shirou squeaked.

"Honey-sempai, get away from the TV— You, twins! I can't see Haruhi—"

"Here I am, Sempai." She poked her head in between their shoulders and waved blandly.

"Haruhi! Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine—"

"Argh, dammit! I've been kidnapped!" said Shirou. "Again!"

"Jiro!"

The yakuza brothers managed to push everyone else out of the way on their respective sides.

"Taro! Thank heavens!"

"Don't worry! I won't let anything befall you, Brother! I swear it with my life!"

Tamaki managed with a few well placed tugs to yank the one on his side off the screen, and got a face full of Akujiro's licorice-rope lips. "Eh. . . . Move, you miscreant! If you had any sense of honor you wouldn't get in the way of a concerned father and his dau—"

"Haruhi says he's just fine," the twins chimed from behind Akujiro. And, oh yes, Tamaki could see just how fine she was, snuggled up in both their arms. "See? We're taking good care of him."

Tamaki's jaw dropped.

"Hey," she squirmed, "watch your hands. You know I'm ticklish there."

Tamaki's face went red as a beet. Kasanoda tried his best to see around his head.

Shirou shuddered like he'd just eaten a bad pickle. "Can this club get any queerer?"

"You have no idea," said Kyouya.

"Will someone get us out of here!" wailed Komatsuzawa. "Cell phone. . . . Someone's gotta have a cell phone!"

The American football club decided judiciously to wait this one out.

"Kyouya!" Tamaki gasped. "Where were you when all this happened?"

"What? No reception?"

"—But you'll understand when you're older the way women's minds work. It's all about marketability."

"Now I don't want to! That's perverted, I don't care what kind of face you put on it."

"Kyouya, you're supposed to be the responsible one! I— Mori-sempai, put me down! —If something happens to Haruhi on your watch, Hikaoru, so help me—"

"Hikaoru? Ha-ha! Wizard, milord! We like the sound of that!" And they grinned like Cheshire cats.

"T-that's not fair. I messed up. . . ."

A diabolical laugh from the main screen brought silence back to the two groups and they turned their attention once again to Renge.

"Oh, the tragedy of it all!" she said with a self-satisfied smile. "Whatever shall you all do? You want to be reunited with your friends and loved ones?"

"Yes!" said Tamaki, Kasanoda, and the yakuza brothers simultaneously, eyes shining.

"You wanna see civilization again?"

"Yes!" the American football team grumbled with arms crossed over their chests.

"You wanna get off this island?"

"God, yes!" Komatsuzawa wailed from his hands and knees over Sakyou's useless cell phone.

"I don't really care," Haruhi alone deadpanned. "As long as my grades don't go down on account of this. I just knew I should have gone straight home yesterday and studied."

"Aw, come on." The twins poked her in the ribs. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

Need they have even asked? "In a box under my bed."

"That's more like it!" said Renge. "Now let's begin the game rules, shall we?"

"Game?" Kuze finally spoke up. "What game?"

"Wait a second," said Tamaki, "this is all starting to sound very familiar. . . ."

"As well it should!" Renge stood back, a contemplative thumb to her chin as she spoke to no one in particular. "As I'm sure you all have noticed by now, what we have here is a classic recipe for a coming-of-age drama of adolescent survival. A group of handsome young men from upstanding families stranded by a stroke of bad luck on a deserted, tropical island without adults or any ties to the civilized world, abounding with teenage hormones and the inexplicable angst of youth. Friendships will be tried, rivalries reformed, and the careful manners forged by high society tested to their limits—"

Tamaki sat up quickly. "I got it! Like the Coral Island!"

"Well, actually, I was thinking more like Lord of the Flies, except with boys of appropriate age for young women to healthily fantasize about."

Everyone uncomfortably avoided looking at Shirou.

"Almost all of appropriate age, anyway. . . ."

"That's like Coral Island, right?" Tamaki went on obliviously. He rubbed his hands together. "This should be a fun challenge. We'll use teamwork to show who best epitomizes the Japanese work ethic."

Haruhi hated to break it to him, but, "Er, if I remember right, Lord of the Flies didn't exactly end so well."

"'Specially for the kid in specs. . . ." The twins looked simultaneously at Kyouya.

Who pushed up said glasses like he hadn't heard. "Mind explaining what this game is all about, Renge?"

Renge nodded. "Thank you, Kyouya-sempai. I knew I could count on you to get right to the meat of this operation. After all, you do have a right to know why you are here. You see, you eighteen are guests of the host club clientele. For our viewing pleasure, we have decided to bring you here and have you fight for our enjoyment a rousing game of paintball deathmatch capture the flag."

And with that the words "RIGHT WAY TO PLAY PAINTBALL DEATHMATCH CAPTURE THE FLAG—BY THE OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB FAN CLUB" appeared across the bottom of the screen.

"Score!" Kasanoda hissed to himself and pumped his fist.

Akutaro and the journalism club gave him dirty looks, but he was unrepentant.

"Your parents have all been sent letters in advance," Renge continued, "explaining the details of this 'teamwork-building excursion'," around which words she made air quotes, "so you won't be missed."

Before anyone could become too despondent, another panel opened in both structures' walls with a ka-chunk, this time revealing a cache of firearms mounted inside ranging from pistols to semi-automatics to sniper rifles, and one canister after another of colored balls.

"The rules are simple," Renge said to this. "You each get a survival kit and your choice of a weapon and paintball ammunition, with which you will eliminate your opponents on the other team by tagging them while your team attempts to steal the other base's flag."

Behind her, the green screen image of the fake Ouran crest became an aerial view of the island, on which both their structures and a third one were located. Renge gestured to each one like a weatherman on the TV news.

"The island is about five kilometers across with fortifications at the north and south ends. Tamaki-sempai's team is Blue Team, whose base you can see here in the north, and Kyouya-sempai's is Red Team located here, on the south end of the island. Your goal is to make it to the other team's base and steal their flag, after which you will bring it here," she pointed to the third dot that made an obtuse triangle with the other bases, "to Alpha Base, and whichever team does so first shall be declared the winner.

"However, in the case that there is no one left to capture the flag, the team with the last man standing shall be declared winner by default. Only by successfully capturing the opposing team's flag or eliminating the competition completely will the game be over, and only then will anyone be able to go home."

While everyone else was too stunned to do anything but stare, Renge raised an index finger.

"Oh! I almost forgot. Your entire experience will be filmed at every step of the way. High definition video cameras have been set up all over the jungle, and to handle the production we've hired the most amazing crew yet! Give them all a big hand for their hard work!" Renge applauded enthusiastically, although she was the only one doing so. "Not that you'll notice any of them. They're that good. Plus your dialog will all be recorded in the field by the necklaces you are all wearing—"

She grabbed her own between thumb and forefinger, which made many of the others automatically raise their hands to their throats.

"—Which also monitor the hits you sustain, letting us know when you're KIA and telling us your location so our awesome cameramen can get the best angles. What's more, they also act as walkie-talkies so you can coordinate with your team members from opposite ends of the island! How exciting! So don't try to rip them off or else—"

"They'll explode?" Akujiro wailed.

Which earned him a funny look from Renge. "No, but it would count toward a forfeit for your team and would really disappoint your fans, so try not to do that, okay? So let's all fight really hard and heroically out there," she said with a gusto, "all right, everyone? Any questions so far?"

When no one could formulate a response, let alone a coherent syllable, Renge answered for them.

"All right! You have the rest of the weekend to finish the game. Good luck, everybody . . . and happy hunting!"

And with a wink, Renge had gone and left them to their fate.