Oishi was unsure of where they'd landed. The screen that was meant to display their location in the pod had went blank when their pod had came to an abrupt stop via crashing into a tree, and their surroundings didn't give them any clues as to where they were. All around them was thick, dense foliage.
Oishi was a little confused. Wasn't Earth meant to be a barren wasteland? But where they'd landed was very definitely green. While he was caught up in wondering why exactly they had ended up in a forest, Eiji seemed unconcerned: he was swinging from tree to tree from the vines that hung from the canopy, having the time of his life.
"Eiji!" Oishi shouted, watching as the acrobatic player only just made a tricky jump, "Stop fooling around! We have to find the others!"
"Don't be so boring, Oishi," Eiji pouted. Oishi only gaped as he laughed and swung from a branch, sticking his tongue out. "This is way more fun than the space station! We should hang out here for a while before we go and find the others."
"We don't have time for that!" Oishi admonished, "We have to find the rest of the team, and then we have to find Ryuzaki-sensei's granddaughter! Then we have to find a way to get back to the stati- urk!"
Oishi was cut off mid-sentence as he stepped out into the clearing, felt something tighten around his ankle and then was yanked suddenly upwards. His blood rushed to his head as he swung from side to side like a pendulum, and a bell, presumably tied to the end of whatever rope had ensnared him, tinkled in the distance.
They were both stunned into silence, but Eiji broke it first, laughing loudly.
"Oishi! You got caught in someone's trap!" He exclaimed, hopping over to the branch where the rope was attached. "Hold on, I'll get you down, nya!"
"Eiji, no-"
Too late. With the knot undone Oishi fell to the ground, wincing as he hit it. To be fair, his fall was somewhat cushioned by the leaves that littered the ground, but even so, it hurt. He sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. He could still hear Eiji laughing overhead.
"It's not funny," he muttered, although the blow to his pride had hurt more than the actual fall had. "Anyway, as I was saying, we need to-"
He was cut off again, this time by a scream that echoed throughout the forest and caused the ground they stood on to quake. Even Eiji stopped laughing, looking around in confusion.
"What was that?" Eiji asked, still trying to sound cheerful even though some fear had crept into his voice.
They paused and waited and heard nothing more. Eiji laughed nervously. "W-well, it's gone now, right? See, listen, it's quiet."
No, it wasn't quiet, Oishi thought. It was something different. It was silent, the sounds of birds and cicadas and the forest around them halted suddenly by that one deafening roar. Oishi swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.
"I think I'll climb a tree too," he said. Maybe that would be a good idea. He'd be safer, he thought – he'd be hidden amongst the leaves, and nothing on the ground that couldn't climb could get him.
The theory that trees equalled safety was quickly disproven when something tore into the clearing, a whirlwind of red that barely stopped moving long enough to uproot the tree Eiji was perched in and tear it from the ground with little more obvious effort than a slight grunt.
"W-what the-" Eiji barely managed to leap down onto the ground from where he stood before the tree was hurled in the opposite direction, tearing down parts of the forest as it flew.
With a dozen trees felled, the boy who had desecrated precious parts of woodland turned to them and managed to pant, "Eh? Pretty good."
"It's just a kid," Eiji murmured, though Oishi noticed that he did stick strangely close by, hovering behind him. Oishi wasn't sure how comfortable he was with being used as a human shield.
"Heh? Just a kid?" The kid said, flexing non-existant muscles and circling them. Eiji clung to Oishi's sleeve and Oishi couldn't help thinking how indecent Earth people were, seeing that this new arrival wore little more than a leopard print loincloth. "Don't get cocky just because you managed to dodge that attack, you trespasser!"
"W-well, if we're not meant to be here, then we'll leave-" Oishi began. The redhead snorted.
"It's too late for me to just let you go!" Redhead snapped, crossing his arms across his chest and looking pointedly at the rope that was still secured around Oishi's ankle. "You ruined my trap! Now what am I going to eat for dinner, eh?"
"Sorry," Oishi apologised quickly. His eyes widened when Kintarou picked up a basketball sized rock, tossing it as though it weighed nothing. Considering that there was a boulder the size of a Mini next to it, Oishi supposed things could have been worse. Still, he held up his hands, his palms clammy with sweat, which shone like crystal. "Hey, come on- let's not do anything hasty-"
"I don't know what that word means," Kintarou said, bluntly, "I'm going to kill you now."
Time seemed to slow down. Oishi saw the rock come towards him, making a beeline for his head. His eyes closed instinctively as it was about to connect with his face. Then he felt Eiji roughly shove him to the ground and blinked and looked up to see his doubles partner backflip out of harm's way.
"Eiji! Good job!" Oishi said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I guess that's why they call us Seigaku's golden pai-"
The Mini boulder crushed him against the forest floor before he could finish his sentence.
When he regained consciousness his head was heavy, his vision was blurry, and he was aware of a coppery tang in his mouth as blood trickled from a sizable head wound to meet his lips. His hands were bound painfully behind his back, and when he looked down his feet hung around six feet off the ground, where wood was stacked up against the stake he was tied to.
How did it come to this? He'd only wanted to make Ryuzaki-sensei happy by finding her granddaughter. And now he was going to die, burnt to a crisp by some crazy jungle kid. Funny, how things worked out sometime.
He heard a "psst!", but he couldn't muster the energy to look up. It was only after he heard a few more "pssts!" that he finally forced his chin upwards, his gaze wavering as he gazed into the trees that lay ahead of him. He didn't see anyone at first, but then he glimpsed something moving within the undergrowth and caught Eiji's eyes.
The look on Eiji's face clearly read 'u ok'.
"Eiji," Oishi breathed, about to call out – but he stopped when Eiji briskly held a finger to his own lips, nodding to his right. Oishi followed his gaze and realised Kintarou was no less than ten feet away, returning with a bundle of firewood in the form of small logs, which he began to stack against the already sizable pile of kindling.
Oishi looked back to Eiji, trying to convey with his expression the sentence 'get me out of here'.
'I'm thinking', Eiji faced back, a frown tugging on his lips. Then, with a little more effort, he managed to convey the words, 'If I distract him, will you be able to get free?'
Oishi shifted as subtly as he could, testing the knot that held his hands together. Trying not to panic, he looked back to EIji. 'No good, I'm tied tight. Do you think you could-'
"What are you staring at?" Kintarou frowned, looking up to him. Oishi felt his heart skip a beat as he looked back to the forest, but he relaxed slightly when he looked back up and saw that Eiji was gone. Kintarou stared into the trees for longer, clearly suspicious, but finally he gave up, apparently not seeing anything.
"Your friend is pretty fast, huh?" He said, tossing the last of the logs onto the front and sitting on it, hand in his chin, "I chased him for at least an hour, but I lost him when the sun began to set. I almost had him at one point, too."
Oishi hadn't even noticed that night had fallen, but it had. A fire burnt in the middle of what seemed to be a makeshift camp, fortunately nowhere near his pyre, illuminating their surroundings. Not that there was much to illuminate: a few tents lay on the outskirts, some loincloths dried from an unsteady looking clothesline, and a spit roasted some unidentifiable meat over yet another fire. Oishi was beginning to suspect that Kintarou just liked lighting fires.
"Your hair is weird," Kintarou said. Oishi didn't want to point out that Kintarou's hair wasn't much better, considering that it looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks and had several twigs and a dead mouse entangled in the red tresses.
He didn't want to speak, but Kintarou seemed to be getting bored, and Oishi got a feeling that that wouldn't bode well for him. Searching for something to talk about, he said, "Who are you?"
"If I told you that, I'd have to kill you."
"You're going to do that anyway," Oishi pointed out.
Kintarou frowned, as though Oishi's logic had totally negated everything he'd ever believed in.
"Well, fine then," he said finally. "If you have to know, I'm the captain of this team!"
"Seriously?"
"Yes. No. Well, while the senpais are away, I am."
Oishi wondered who on earth had thought it was a good idea to leave Kintarou in charge. Then again, if this was what the kouhai here were like, the senpais might be even more nightmarish…
"Who are you?" Kintarou asked, his tone accusing.
"Oishi Syuuichirou," he managed to answer in spite of the growing pounding in his head and despite the fact that Kintarou hadn't even answered his question properly. "Vice captain of the Seishun Space Station Tennis Club."
"You play tennis?"
Kintarou seemed genuinely curious, his voice suddenly void of hostility. "Even though you're a human? You can't be very good! But if you're the vice captain then you have to be kinda okay, right? You should play a match with me!"
"Can't," Oishi replied weakly. When Kintarou's eyes darkened once more, he quickly added, "Because I play doubles. I'm not as good at singles."
"Doubles?" Kintarou repeated. Then, sudden realisation dawning on him, he said, "Oh. Oh. So you're like Koharu-senpai and Yuuji-senpai. Was that guy with you your partner?"
Oishi nodded, before he became to exhausted to raise his head any longer and he groaned and looked down, his chin resting on his chest. Kintarou was now giving him a knowing look.
"I see," he said, "In that case, then, I'll put off killing you 'til I can catch your partner. You should be able to say goodbye to each other before I get rid of you both."
"Kintarou-kun!" Now a voice broke through the air, followed by a laugh. "What's all this talk about killing? We leave our freshman alone for a few days and you turn into a savage!"
"Koharu-senpai!"
Oishi still didn't look up. It was a pity he didn't; Koharu entered the camp's clearing in an appropriately slapstick fashion, with Koharu slipping on a banana skin and then stepping on a comedically placed rake. Rest assured, if this fic was accompanied by a laugh track, the fake studio audience would be roaring with laughter right now.
Koharu pursed his lips and looked up to Oishi. "Where did you find this one?"
"Near the river," Kintarou answered, sounding impatient, "But that doesn't matter! Why are you back early? You weren't meant to come home for weeks!"
"Change of plan. We got some news and Shiraishi decided it would be best if we put off going to Tokyo for a while. Kenya-kun's doing one last sweep of the jungle before coming back to camp, too."
Kintarou seemed suspicious. "But… why? What made you come back?"
"It doesn't matter," Koharu said, "It's probably nothing for us to be concerned about, but Tokyo is off limits for now. Now, were you planning on roasting this guy?"
"Yeah!" Kintarou said, nodding vigorously, "I thought he'd make a great sacrifice for the jungle god! Way better than the goats we usually offer him! And he's got a doubles partner, too, just like you! I figured I'd catch the other one and let them die together, so I was putting off starting the fire!"
"Kintarou, you're a true romantic," Koharu said, his chin in his hands as he looked Oishi up and down. "But it'd be a shame, don't you think? Killing such a handsome guy- ow!"
Koharu winced, and Kintarou gave him a sympathetic look. "Yuuji-senpai yelling at you?"
"Hm. Sometimes I forget he can hear me," Koharu said, crossing his legs and sighing wistfully, "Synchro is a pain sometimes."
Unable to keep himself awake for much longer, Oishi's vision faded and he slipped back into unconsciousness.
The next time he awoke, someone was fiddling with the ropes at his wrists. He tensed, but relaxed slightly when he heard a familiar voice hiss, "It's me."
"Eiji," Oishi sighed, craning his neck to try to see him to no avail. "What's going on? Where did they go?"
"The two of them were trying to get Kintarou to take a bath and he ran away," Eiji replied, still struggling with the rope. "Ah- almost done. Be ready for when you fall down."
Oishi nodded. Gradually he felt the ropes loosen and he fell, rather ungracefully, to the ground, barely just landing on his feet. He swayed unsteadily, and Eiji caught him.
"You're bleeding-"
"We have to find the others."
"Is that all you think of?" Eiji asked, his voice uncharacteristically chastising. "You need to think about yourself! You're lucky you've got such a thick head, or you'd have been a goner!"
Oishi didn't answer. He took an unsteady step forward, the ground below his eyes swaying and spinning. Slowly, the made their way forward, back towards the cover of the forest – then feet stepped into view. Bandaged feet.
Oishi made himself look up, his gaze running over bandaged legs and torso and chest and arms and head. They couldn't see the face, with it being covered in bandages, but Oishi was sure it was menacing. There were eyeholes cut out to reveal eyes, but besides that the only part of the body visible besides his hands was his hair.
"Ah~ Nn~ What's this?"
"Yikes!" Eiji said, turning Oishi around, "Other way!"
On the opposite side of the clearing stood an adult man with a solid gold body and a head dress of jungle flowers. Eiji tugged Oishi in the other direction, but a tall bald boy emerged from the trees on that side. They turned again and found themselves facing yet another member of Shitenhouji.
"Oishi!" Eiji yelled, "We're surrounded by freaks!"
"Eiji!"
"Oishi!"
"Well," said the gold man, seemingly amused, "This isn't the usual kind of sacrifice. Someone did tell Kintarou I'm not really the jungle king, right?"
Shitenhouji shifted awkwardly. No, nobody had thought to tell Kintarou that Osamu being an ancient jungle god was an inside joke from before he'd joined the tribe. And now he'd tried to sacrifice humans to a fake deity! How awkward.
"Anyway, we've returned with bad news," Osamu said, sitting down on a rock. Oishi and Eiji made to move, before the advisor added, "I'd sit down and listen if I were you, strangers. I don't know where you came from, but now you're here, this concerns you too."
Very much against their will, Oishi and Eiji sat down to listen to the story.