24

Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi, not me.


Momoshiro biked down the maze of streets, cars and houses, mindlessly zigzagging around for no specific reason. He realized soon that he had nothing to do now that Ryoma wasn't with him.

You see, Momo's daily ritual of stuffing his mouth with millions of burgers after tennis practice just wasn't the same without Ryoma next to him muttering "Mada mada dane..."

And so Momo finally ended up just deciding to head on home.

As he continue to bike to his house, he noticed something idiosyncratic about the scenery around him. He was sure this was the way back to his house, for he knew the town like the back of his hand, but he couldn't help and notice something was different. For one thing, the houses and buildings around him seemed unfamiliar and fake. Which was odd because he takes this route every day to go back home. Plus, the normally crowded streets were empty. Car-less, people-less, and --- amazingly peaceful! Yes, Momo decided he enjoys the new peace and quiet, not even worrying about why it was so silent and empty. Big mistake, Momoshiro.

Suddenly, some other noise joined in with the bike's pedaling rhythm.

Momo's bike had begun to rattle. Like it was breaking down slowly and extra pieces or screws were falling off. Momo looked down at his bike's wheels and body, checking to make sure that it was alright. Yet another big mistake, Momoshiro.

Since his eyes were strayed from the path in front of him, he didn't notice something happening to the street.

A part of the road in front of him had slid open, revealing a pit of black nothingness. Yet Momo failed to notice this, still trying to detect what was wrong with his bike.

And so Momo rode directly into the enormous hole in the ground.

Had anyone been there, they might have seen him fall.

Had anyone been there, they might have heard his piercing scream as it decreased into nothing.

Had anyone been there, there might still have been some hope of realizing and rescuing Momo from whatever was in the pit.

But, unfortunately for Momoshiro, no was around to save him.

- - -

The inside of the building was almost as impressive as Tezuka's style of tennis. Almost. The Tezuka Zone still rules all.

Ryoma and his mysterious kidnapper stood at the entrance of the building, apparently waiting for something. What that something was, Ryoma had no clue. But he didn't really care. Yay, Indifferent Ryoma to the rescue!

Anyways, to him, it seemed as if the building was a hotel. Mixed with an office building. Mixed with a tourist attraction building. Mixed with a hospital. So to him, it was basically a tourist-attracting office hotel that comes with a hospital. Great deal, no?

By the front desk, there was a whole line of people, just waiting to be checked into the "hotel". By the elevator, there was a whole line of tourists just waiting to enter the "tourist attraction", whatever it was, with their tickets in their hands. By the hallway, mobs of men and women dressed in formal business outfits, who worked in this "office" building, were entering and exiting random rooms with laser pointers (probably for their work presentations or something). By the white, swinging doors and the huge Red Cross sign, random nurses exited or entered the "hospital", pushing around beds or wheelchairs occupied with random injured, sick, or old people.

All the busy commotion made Ryoma's kidnapper dizzy. At least Ryoma assumed that when the person started to rub their paper-bagged temples but with no success.

See, any idiot would've realized that this was the perfect opportunity to run away from their kidnapper. With the crowds and crowds of random people bustling all over the place and with the kidnapper having a fierce headache (and not to mention a paper bag over their head that doesn't have especially big eyeholes), this would've been the ideal chance of escape.

But, as we should all already know, Ryoma doesn't care for such things. He's obviously apathetic to his current situation. No matter how dire it may be.

Finally, the kidnapper saw whatever they were waiting for and started to move again, whisking Ryoma along with them. Every now and then, Ryoma would crash into a stranger or a piece of furniture.

For, you see, he was still worrying about who was going to feed Karupin.

It was funny how no one noticed or cared about a young boy with his hands tied up behind him being led by a mysterious person with a paper bag on their head. Out of all the people, no one even stopped to wonder what was going on. People can be so dense sometimes...

Ryoma blinked back into reality as he and his captor turned down an abandoned hallway and entered a private elevator. Ryoma hastily went in and looked at the 55 buttons. Wow... a lot of floors... he thought to himself.

He and his captor stood in the elevator awkwardly, waiting for the door to close.

"So. How 'bout loosening these ropes now?" Ryoma asked the person once again.

The hostage taker just rolled his/her eyes behind those minuscule little eyeholes. Ryoma muttered to himself under his breath, "Mada mada dane..."

As the elevator started up, the tiny screen above the door which said which floor they were on started to flash numbers. To pass time, Ryoma just stared at the numbers, wondering which of the 55 floors they were going to stop at.

1... 3... 7...move faster...11... 13... 18...23... Ryoma continued to stare blankly at the numbers, almost falling asleep (as if he didn't have enough of that during class). The ones' digit in 23 changed to a 4 so that the screen now said 24.

Ryoma stared at the screen, waiting for the 24 to change to a 25. Yet it didn't. It stayed at 24. Ryoma, confused, looked at his kidnapper to see if they'd noticed this as well.

But kidnapper wasn't showing any sign of surprise.

Or movement, for that matter.

He/she was frozen still.

Ryoma just blinked and shrugged. He then returned his gaze to the elevator screen.

But the black screen and the green number 24 it had on it had disappeared. Instead, it was replaced by a color screen showing some sort of scene taking place. Kind of like a TV.

The scene had a person with a long, black leather jacket and a paper bag over their head. Ryoma, since he's so darn smart, inferred that this person was his kidnapper.

In the scene, the kidnapper was in a room, facing a desk. A person was most likely sitting behind it, since Ryoma saw a pair of hands clasped together on the desk, but the person's body and face was just cut off by the small limit of space the screen showed.

Ryoma's anonymous kidnapper and the other anonymous person behind the desk were alone in the room. Or as far as Ryoma could tell, they were. The room was spacious, giant glass windows lining one wall, deep azure-colored wallpaper lining the other. The other two walls Ryoma could not see, due to his range of vision.

Suddenly, Ryoma's kidnappers arm lifted up to their paper-bagged head. The person then grasped their paper bag in their hands and took it off, revealing their face.

Ryoma gasped.

Well, not really. Because Ryoma didn't care much. He just blinked.

But any normal person who actually cared for such matters would've gasped after seeing their kidnapper's true identity.

- - -

"My bike!!" Momoshiro yelled in horror after seeing his bike's current state. One of its wheels had come out and rolled away, the handle bars with broken and bent in awkward positions, and the rest of the bike's body was deformed until it was no longer really considered bike at all. Poor Momo.

Momo knelt by what used to be his bike and mourned for some fifteen minutes. Then, he proceeded to collect the lost wheel and some other parts that had broken off and piled the pieces all up in a little mound. Having no dirt or shovel to dig a grave, he just murmured one last goodbye before getting up.

Momo looked around him. The darkness of the place suddenly hit him. It seemed that the only light there was one far, far away. For he was in some sort of tunnel. With only one direction other than up.

Since that the light was in that direction, and not mention that that was the only route he could take, Momo decided to head down the tunnel in that direction.

But before he turned to go, he looked up to analyze how deep into the ground he was.

Apparently, he was pretty far down because the speck of daylight above him was so infinitesimal (my urge to input more advanced vocabulary took over).

It suddenly occurred to him that his bike had taken the worst of the fall yet he didn't have one bruise on his body!

Well, he technically did. He got one earlier today during tennis practice...

But, anyways, that great of a fall should have killed him! The ground was stiff, hard cement! He should've died!

Yet, Momo is still standing. How odd.

Momo, still perplexed by why he was still breathing, just decided that he shouldn't be complaining. So, with this disturbing question still lingering in his mind, he began to walk towards the light.


Haha, how ironic... (Get it? Since, like, people who are on the brink of deathwalk towards the light and Momo should've been on the brink of death but he wasn't at all and so that's kind of ironic and... yeah...)