Photo 10: The Great Inter-School Mystery!
Seigaku, Rikkai Dai, Hyotei, and Shitenhouji had just finished a week long training camp together and to celebrate not having to deal with each other for at least a month they decided to throw a party! All was well but some of the tennis players couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. . .
"Sanada, have you seen Akaya recently? I'm worried he's gone and done something with Niou again," Yukimura confided in his long-time friend.
"No, I haven't seen him since everyone split up for the last bit of practice," Sanada answered.
Shiraishi walked up to them with a thoughtful look on his face "Kirihara is missing? Actually Kenya isn't around either and everyone else is here. . ., I think. "
"Hmm, I wonder where they could be," Yukimura mused.
Their answer came in the form of a certain seaweed headed second year who, instead of being M.I.A, burst through the doors screaming. "Buchou! I saw a dead body! We're all gonna die! Save me!"
Shock set around the room. Dead Body!? Was what everyone was thinking.
"Akaya," Yukimura stated calmly "please calm down and tell us what made you run in here screaming."
After calming his breathing Akaya started his tale "I already told you there was a dead body! I saw it! I was coming back from the dorm area when, at the entrance to the outside bathrooms, I saw a dead body! And it was someone from the other teams. What was his name again?" Akaya thought out loud scratching his head "Uh, Oti-something or other, Taki-um? I know his name is a country or continent! Egypt? Brazil? Africa? Ken-something?"
"Kenya!" Shiraishi interjected.
"Yeah! That's it!" Akaya exclaimed.
"Wait," Zaizen started slowly "You're telling us that Kenya-sempai is dead? I need to start taking notes for my blog."
Koharu smacked Zaizen on the head "Be more caring of your sempai!" he huffed.
Rubbing his head Zaizen mumbled "That was unnecessary. Just like those annoying skits."
Koharu gasped "How can you say that? Is it that I'm not beautiful enough? Is that it?" he started tearing up a bit.
"Don't say that Koharu! You're all I need!" Yuuji cried.
"Oh Yuuji~!"
"Koharu~!"
"Yuuji~!"
"Koha-"
"Ahem," everyone else coughed to get the idiot duo's attention to remind them they were still in the room.
Atobe looked disgustedly at the two "Ore-sama demands that you two stop that scene of, affection. Are you forgetting that your teammate is possibly dead?"
Choutarou gasped "Don't say that buchou! That's terrible, death is a big deal! The other Oshitari-san can't be dead!" He started tearing up at the thought of it.
"Calm down Choutarou," Shishido comforted "He's not dead it's probably just a misunderstanding."
"It's not a misunderstanding!" Akaya defended "I know what I saw and what I saw was a dead body! I checked he wasn't breathing!"
Another somewhat awkward silence took hold of the room. Everyone was glancing at each other hoping someone else would talk.
"Saa," Fuji broke the silence "Why don't you show us the body? I've never seen a real dead body before."
"Fuji!" The whole of Seigaku (including the freshmen and girls) shouted.
Chuckling lightly Fuji responded "I didn't mean it like that. I meant that Oshitari might not be dead, we can't trust Kirihara's word, shouldn't we see for ourselves?"
"That is true," Oshitari (Yuushi) said, taking the possibility that his cousin might be dead surprisingly calmly.
"Are you calling me a liar?" Akaya huffed "I'm not that stupid. I can prove what I saw."
Niou grinned "Hey, seaweed head finally admitted he was stupid."
"And we're not ever letting him live it down are we?" Tsuji put in.
"Nope," Marui agreed popping a large green bubble.
Oishi cleared his throat nervously "We should probably check on Oshitari, just to make sure. I mean we can't just leave him out there."
"What are we waiting for? Kirihara lead the way," Shiraishi said.
"Finally," Akaya mumbled, stalking off to where he supposedly saw the 'dead' body of Oshitari Kenya.
Upon arrival at the entrance to the bathrooms the middle school students were met with the sight of the limp, unmoving body of Oshitari Kenya. The Shitenhouji students immediately freaked out and ran up to him, shaking him to try and wake him up, to no avail.
"Ahhhh! Kenya-sempai is really dead! We're all gonna die! Koshimae play me one last game!" Kintarou exclaimed while nearly jumping into Ryoma's arms.
"Mada mada dane," Ryoma said simply tugging his cap down uncomfortably.
Inui pushed his glasses up after inspecting Kenya. "Did you even check his pulse, breathing, or if his pupils are dilated? If those symptoms don't show he's not dead."
After electing the Shitenhouji, Hyotei, and Seigaku captains to do the checking everyone else backed up.
Shiraishi was up first checking his pupils, he slowly pulled up the eyelid and paled. "His pupils are dilated," he muttered a shadow casting over his eyes.
Atobe was next and putting a tissue in front of Kenya's mouth to see if he was breathing, after a few seconds and no sign of breathing, everyone paled even more, and some even started hyperventilating.
Finally Tezuka held Kenya's wrist checking for a pulse.
Thirty seconds later Momoshiro got impatient "Well buchou?"
Tezuka was silent for a moment before answering "There's no pulse."
Everyone froze where they were standing, not even breathing. Once the information sunk in a few of the more sensitive ones started tearing up.
"S-so he's actually dead?" Eiji sniffled.
Yanagi nodded solemnly "It appears so."
"Wait," Inui commanded "He has a pulse and is breathing, it's slow but steady. He's not dead!"
"Huh!?" Everyone jumped.
"Hang on," Niou interrupted the rejoicing tennis players "Even if he's not dead why was he passed out like that?"
"As much as I hate agreeing with any of you he's right," Eien added "How did Oshitari manage to fall into such a deep state of near death?"
"Well, from my calculations we have reason to believe he might have been poisoned," Yanagi supplied. At the mention of 'poison' everyone's eyes drifted to a certain data obsessed juice maker.
"There is a 72% chance you all believe I did it," Inui replied to the unvoiced question "I didn't. There is actually a 45% chance someone in this group did it, a 50% chance a third party did it, and a 5% chance of this happening from natural causes." Inui read off from his book.
"So there might be a killer here!?" Horio squeaked.
"And Kentucky was his first victim?!" Akaya shrieked "What if we're next?"
"He's not dead!" Everyone yelled at the second year ace. "And his name is Kenya! Not Kentucky!"
Akaya blinked dumbly "Oh."
"Uh not to ruin the mood or anything. But don't you think we should call the police and let them know there is a 50% chance there's a killer on the loose?" Momo rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"No," Sanada spoke out "If we let them know there is something strange going on here they might close down the tennis clubs for investigation of anyone who might want to harm the members."
Everyone gasped 'No tennis?'.
"Are you proposing that we figure out this case by ourselves?" Shiraishi asked.
Atobe nodded in approval "This is a good chance for us to improve our skills in other areas. Though first we should split up and look for clues that might lead us to our culprit."
Oshitari raised an eyebrow "I didn't think you had it in you to play detective, Atobe."
"Of course I can," Atobe declared with a wave of his hand "Ore-sama is king after all."
Yukimura having enough of being outshined by Atobe gave a listen-to-me-lesser-beings-smile to everyone who were all chattering amongst themselves, and they immediately shut up. "Now," Yukimura gave a serene smile "how do you think we should split up? We have a lot of ground to cover. The courts, the mess hall, the three floors of the dormitory and the basement, the weight room, bathrooms, administration, and the two unused buildings. Eleven places in all, and there are 34 of us."
"You're counting us too?" Tomoka questioned.
Yukimura looked offended "Of course, you all are a part of Seigaku."
"Somehow I think the count is wrong," Sanada mumbled incoherently.
Atobe looked rather annoyed at how long they were taking and stepped up "Ore-sama demands you all listen to him. This is how the groupings will go: All the captains plus Sanada will take the courts, freshmen will go to the mess hall, Momoshiro and Mukahi will go to the basement, Ootori and Shishido will go to the first floor, Kuwahara and Kabaji will take the second floor, Konjinki, Hitoji, Kaidoh shall go to the third floor, Yanagi and Eien will go to the weight room, Gin, Inui, and Chitose will cover all the bathrooms and small outside structures, Oshitari, Kikumaru, and Oishi will go to the building and the right side Marui, Kirihara, and Tsuji the building next to administration, Niou, Yagyuu, and Fuji will go to administration. The last two groups also get the honor of investigating that creepy abandon house right off the property. Ore-sama is warning all of you right now that we only have until tomorrow at 3 o'clock sharp to figure this out. Dismissed!"
"Don't let your guard down," Tezuka addressed everyone as they split off.
"Do you really think this is the best course of action Atobe?" Shiraishi asked while walking off towards the courts on the other side of the property "But I think we're forgetting something."
Atobe scoffed "Of course it is, the groupings were random but the amount of people depended on how much ground they had to cover. So it was actually quite a thought out plan. I'm sure I didn't forget anything."
"Don't you think we should have left some people to keep watch over Oshitari though?" Yukimura added in "Or at least moved the body somewhere less conspicuous?"
Atobe stopped briefly at the pointing out of his mistake "Well if we do have to call the police we should not touch evidence."
"I keep telling you we forgot something," Sanada said exasperatingly.
"Ore-sama did not forget anything!" Atobe argued.
Tezuka sighed, this was going to be a long night.
.~.
Meanwhile where everyone left Kenya's body, what Atobe had forgotten was standing baffled.
"I can't believe my own buchou forgot about me!" Hiyoshi fumed "Again!"
Zaizen blinked "Come to think of it who are you?"
"Hiyoshi from Hyotei," Hiyoshi replied "Who are you?"
"Zaizen from Shitenhouji," Zaizen said "I didn't even get to actually play in the tournament, Chitose just took over the match."
"Oh," Hiyoshi said "Actually I think we left Jirou asleep in the free room. That explains why we didn't hear someone fanboying over Marui."
"I don't get why we're forgotten so much," Zaizen mumbled "I guess we could just watch Kenya-sempai for now."
"Whatever, if we get bored we could always mess with the others," Hiyoshi said sitting down taking a deck of cards from his pocket "Cards?"
Zaizen took a seat next to his unconscious sempai "Sure."
As this was playing out the most forgotten of the tennis players sulked in a corner crying about how even the others who were forgotten forgot about him. "Even Zaizen forgot! And I'm his fukubuchou!" Kojiro cried into the night.
.~.
A/N: And cut! Wow that was a pretty long one for me. I've decided to just divide them up into several parts. Honestly this is my favorite idea so far. Tell me what you think! Favs, reviews, and follows are always appreciated!