Course 4: Niou's Birthday

Over a week had passed from the newbies' first day at Delicious Gakuin. During the week, the newbies had been taken on tours of the campus and given a general feel of the school instead of taking classes.

Apparently, it was also Niou's birthday, but from the festiveness of the students you would think it was just a normal day. Nope, no one would ever suspect that the Trickster would be celebrating his birthday today. That's why Niou was currently pissed off.

"Well Gingles, it looks like everyone forgot it was my birthday today," Niou said as calmly as he could. He turned to glare at some unfortunate students and grinned evilly. Making a motion in their general direction, he muttered, "Doom."

Gingles shot forward and viscously attack the students before dashing back to Niou. This caused an uproar among the students, which cheered Niou up considerably since he wasn't getting in trouble.

"Niou-senpai, if you're bored you can always start cooking in the kitchen," Someone behind Niou pointed out.

"Oh, hello… Um…" Niou said cheerfully as he quickly turned around once Gingles was back on his shoulder.

"I'm Echizen Ryoga, remember?" Ryoga grumbled.

"Right… You're the somewhat new-guy who recently started settling, puri. So, how do you like it here, Ryoga-kun?" Niou said with false cheerfulness.

"I'm not a new guy!" Ryoga shouted.

"Yes, you are. Seeing as you got here just over a week, I have every right to call you a newbie, but that title is taken, see? So you're stuck with 'the new guy' as your nickname. Hey isn't that the signal to got to class? Better hurry or you'll be late!" Niou stated.

"Oi Niou-senpai, you'd better hurry. If you're late again, Sanada-senpai will slap you," Ryoma pointed out as he jogged past the two. He stopped when he spotted Ryoga. "Che, Ryoga, you'd better get to class too. See you guys later."

Niou shrugged and walked after him. He didn't care too much if he was late. He was sure Kikumaru was the teacher today, and he was pretty lenient towards late students.

Back with the newbies, Fuji and Atobe had head off to class like the good students they were, but Kintaroh had snuck away from them… and spotted an exit sign! He chuckled silently and tiptoed towards the 'exit,' but halfway there a bunch of arrows came out of nowhere and pinned him to the wall. Then, feather duster that also came out of nowhere started tickling him.

"Ha ha… Wh-what the heck is this? How do you stop these things?" Kintaroh laughed.

Fuji and Atobe had assembled in the front of their new classmates while the other first-years were in their seats waiting patiently for their introductions. Atobe snapped loudly, attracting everyone's attention.

"Ore-sama is Atobe Keigo. It's nice to meet you," Atobe said haughtily.

"Saa, I'm Fuji Syuusuke. I hope we don't become fr- I mean nice to meet ya," Fuji said amiably. Some of the first years got bad vibes from Fuji's introduction and decided to stay as far away from him as possible. At that point, Kikumaru walked angrily into the classroom, shoving Kintaroh in front of him. Kintaroh walked in front hesitantly and glared at Kikumaru after being shoved forward.

"And I don't wanna see you back there again! Nya? Moring Fuji! Have a nice day," Kikumaru said before frolicking off to teach his class, but he didn't really frolic at least not in front of the students. The students stared at Kintaroh, until Fuji nudged him and told him to introduce himself.

"I'm Kintaroh. And I wanna get out of this school! I miss playing tennis…" Kintaroh grumbled.

Some of the other students chuckled to themselves, but they quickly stopped and sat down in their seats. While the newbies looked around nervously, Sanada walked and Hiyoshi walked into the room. Sanada looked thoughtfully at the student, while Hiyoshi directed them to reassemble in kitchen 157.

The students walked out of the class and eventually everyone got to Kitchen 157. There, Hiyoshi instructed them to chop the onions so one of the higher up classes could use them in their soup project. The first-years grumbled a bit, but did as they were told.

Ryoga showed off by chopping his onion in an over dramatic fashion with some of the other students cheering him on or praising his skills.

Fuji glanced at his onion and grinned thoughtfully as he imagined all the dishes he could make with an onion (soup, rice, something with wasabi in it). With a shrug, he chopped his onion. Who knows? They might let me make some wasabi-onion soup for dinner, Fuji thought.

Atobe carefully cut his onion with his scissors; you know the ones in his impeccably white and fluffy fur coat. He was wearing one of those toxic waste suits over his coat because he feared making his eyes water even a little. Kintaroh on the other hand, had fallen asleep and ignored everyone as one by one the other first years finished. He would have slept longer, but his stomach rumbled, reminding him of how little they feed him the other night.

"Man… I'm so hungry. I wonder why they don't let us have breakfast," he whined sleepily to himself.

Sanada walked back and forth observing the students techniques. When he reached Atobe and Kintaroh, he grunted, "Hmm… What are they doing?"

Ryoga grinned and got the other students to hold Atobe. He struggled and shouted a lot so, Ryoga whispered something to Atobe, and he shut up immediately.

"Hey aren't you going to even try to chop your onion, Kintaroh-kun?" Hiyoshi sighed.

"I bet he's so bad at using a knife that he's scared of getting embarrassed," Ryoga chuckled.

"That doesn't make any sense," Atobe replied. The students holding him shoved Atobe against the wall hoping to shut him up again.

Kintaroh glared at Ryoga and mumbled, "I could chop the stupid onion if I wanted to, but I'm really hungry right now…"

"Oh yeah? Well here's an onion. Go ahead and chop it, if you can," Ryoga challenged. He held out an onion and smirked at Kintaroh. Instead of grabbing the onion and mincing it into microscopic pieces like he could have done, Kintaroh bit into the onion. Ryoga nearly dropped the onion right then, but Kintaroh grabbed it before Ryoga spazzed.

This isn't nearly as good as onigiri, but I'm hungry, Kintaroh thought discontentedly. He shrugged and continued eating the onion. Ryoga and the other students, including Atobe, gave him weird looks.

Meanwhile, in tennis courts all over Japan junior high school teams wondered what happened to some of their teammates.

Seigaku

"Inui, do you have any theories on why Ryoma, Fuji, Kikumaru, Taka-san, and Momo are missing?" Oishi asked. They'd been missing practice for the past week and a half, which was when Tezuka decided to give the team a few days off.

"40 percent chance they've been abducted by some random people, 1 percent chance their skipping practice on purpose, 50 percent chance that whatever it is Ryuzaki-sensei is in on it and has decided to exclude us," Inui stated like the robot we all think he will create someday.

"What happened to the other 9 percent?" Oishi questioned.

"I don't know," Inui stated sadly. Oh the horror!

"Fssssssssssh… Maybe they're cooking stuff?" Kaidoh muttered.

Tezuka walked in and sighed. With all the missing regulars, practice was starting to seem really empty. Ryuzaki-sensei didn't seem to notice either, which only made matters worse. Tezuka wondered mildly what the world was coming to, but after several long moments he decided some things were best left alone.

Rikkaidai

"Yukimura, what the heck happened to the rest of the team?" Marui shouted.

The only regulars present were Yukimura, Jackal, Renji, and Marui. The four were trying to practice, but having only half the team present was ruining everyone's concentration, so Yukimura had ended practice early.

"Hmm… Even Sanada isn't here," Yukimura stated. He frowned a little but decided he would solve the problem by ordering Niou, Kirihara, Sanada, and Yagyuu to run 557 laps when they got back. It's not like they really had to train anymore though, after all the finals for the Nationals tournament were over.

"I think it's extremely likely all four of them have joined some sort of cooking club and are currently unable to leave," Renji stated.

"I think that theory is hilarious," Jackal replied.

"As Tezuka-san from Seigaku would say; Saa, yudan sezu ni ikou," Yukimura chuckled.

Hyotei

"Hey guys… Where'd Atobe and Oshitari go?" Mukahi asked as he walked into the clubroom.

"Sugee! They disappeared!" Jiroh exclaimed loudly and cheerfully.

Shishido glanced at Kabaji who stood there looking impassive. Choutaro glanced around the club as well.

"Hey guys, Hiyoshi isn't here either." He pointed out.

"Well… That's weird, aren't they normally here?" Mukahi exclaimed.

"Well, Atobe was a pretty annoying captain… And Hiyoshi didn't seem to know when to stop saying Gekokujyou," Shishido shrugged.

"But Yuushi is an important part of this team!" Mukahi insisted.

"He's got a point Shishido-san," Choutaro commented.

"Well Sakaki-sensei doesn't seem too worried so it should be ok," Shishido said nonchalantly.

"Unless he's in on whatever is happening!!!" Jiroh shouted. He'd woken up and had listened to the conversation silently because not many people notice him.

"What do you mean, Jiroh-senpai?" Choutaro asked.

"He's got a point… Two of the best members of our team haven't been at practice for the past several days and he doesn't so much as ask us where they are. Either he really doesn't care, which is impossible, or he knows where they are and knows not to worry…" Shishido said logically.

"Since when we're you so logical?" both Jiroh and Mukahi asked at the same time.

"Since our analyst, Oshitari, and Atobe left. Someone has to fill in the missing gap of knowledge, right?" Shishido stated.

"Are you saying I'm an idiot?" Mukahi asked calmly.

"Of course not… I'm not stupid enough to argue with you," Shishido snapped. He left the room to practice his Rising shot and some new move that he's been dieing to perfect, but never got the chance because Atobe or Hiyoshi would always start bothering when he tried.

"Let's go bother Sakaki-sensei!" Jiroh shouted.

"I don't think that's the best idea, Jiroh-senpai…" Choutaro said hesitantly.

But they followed Jiroh as he frolicked off the bother Sakaki anyway because they were that bored.

Shitenhouji

"Hey guys… What happened to Bucho and Kin-chan?" Kenya asked.

The other regulars looked up from their various activities to stare blankly at him.

"You're right… They haven't been to practice fro the past week. What happened?" Zaizen commented

"I think they're sulking 'cause they both almost lost back during the nationals," Gin stated

Meanwhile Koharu kinda ignored the conversation, just because, and Yuuji deiced to be the Shishido of Shitenhouji and stated in similar words what Shishido said earlier.

Back at the Delicious Gakuin

The newbies were back it their room full of trick doors, glass walls, dangerous boxes, brooms, mirrors, and such. Kintaroh had decided to unveil his master plan to get all three of them out hopefully for good, but at least long enough for Atobe to get them a plane out of the country for a few weeks… or to get their tennis stuff.

As he discussed the plan, Ryoga had been walking by and had decided to eavesdrop cause he's an evil sta- I mean because he likes picking on the newbies that got him demoted to 'new guy,' not that newbie was any better.

"Alright I think I've found a way to escape here! I'm not sure if we can all make it but who wants to come with me?"

"Ore-sama doesn't like it here! Ore-sama wishes to play tennis."

"Saa, me too… But what's this about not everyone being able to 'make it'?"

"Aw, just come on. They left our door unlocked!" Kintaroh whined.

Eh? Wasn't that Ryoga just now? Fuji wondered. Fuji shrugged and followed the other two out of the room. Who knows it might be a fun experience exploring the school. Then again if he got in trouble he could always say the other two forced him to come.

Oishii!Delicious! Ah, Sugoi! Chapter end and…. Cut. That's a wrap.

Sorry for taking so long on this chapter. It's official though. After the next chapter, this fanfic is on hiatus until further notice. I'll try to put up fillers every now and then. Meanwhile other works will come and go. Don't expect updates for a long while on this one. And yes, this chapter takes place on Dec. 4th.