The new three-hour limit that Coach Ryuuzaki had enforced was soon going to be up. If no one had died yet then, all the collars would explode.
The people who were playing with blowguns in the house knew this. Naturally, they were worried.
"Fuji," Kawamura began slowly, looking questioningly at his friend, who seemed to be enjoying himself with the laptop. "Have you worked out anything yet?"
"Of course," Fuji replied gaily.
"Good. So what have you discovered?" Saeki asked, fiddling with his blowgun. He was quite an expert at it. However the others tried, they could not shoot their paper balls as far as Saeki could.
"I've already begun the third round," Fuji told him happily. He had actually been playing Spider Solitaire the whole time.
"Fuji!" Kawamura yelled in horror.
"Aniki!" Yuuta yelled in horror.
"Fuji-senpai!" Ryoma yelled in horror.
"Why are you guys all yelling my name?" Fuji asked rather innocently.
"Because you're playing Spider Solitaire while you could have done something much more useful." Yuuta sighed. "Echizen, you yelled for the same reason, didn't you?"
"Actually I yelled because I saw a jaguar walk past our window and wanted to ask Fuji-senpai if he could shoot it. It's gone now, though," Ryoma explained regretfully.
"Are you insane, Echizen? There can't be any jaguars here," Momo pointed out as he practiced with his blowgun.
"You can't blame Echizen, you know," Bane mused. "In such a life-and-death situation, it is hard not to go crazy. Seeing things that aren't there may be a sign of breaking down. Luckily I'm still sane though. Hey guys, look, there's a frozen lake out there. Let's all go play hockey."
"And you are calling me crazy," Ryoma muttered, smirking. "There really was a jaguar. I saw it with my own eyes."
"But ochibi, it is a bit far-fetched," Eiji pointed out.
"This is not the right time to think about jaguars," Yuuta insisted from aside. "Our collars will explode in ten minutes if no one dies. Isn't this much more important than jaguars?"
"Don't worry, Yuuta. I have guns, and we have this Mi—uh, Misaki? No, that's a girl's name. Wait, I think I got it. Mikoto, isn't it? We have this Mikoto guy here, so I can just shoot him and we'll be perfectly fine."
"Hey," Mizuki cried, "that's not fair."
"Guys, look, that jaguar—" Ryoma shouted, pointing at the window.
"That is not the point! Forget the jaguar!" Yuuta screamed, almost in hysterics. He wondered why everyone looked as if they didn't care about dying in the next ten minutes.
At this precise moment, Coach Ryuuzaki's drawling voice came blaring over the loudspeakers.
"Hello, everyone. Someone has just died, so you get another three hours. Isn't that grand? Continue your killing, and better pick up your pace, or you'll all be dead soon! Bye-bye!"
"Bye-bye," Eiji replied, waving. Yuuta looked at the happy senpai in disbelief and buried his face in his hands.
"Who died? Shouldn't you be telling us already?" Momo shouted in the direction of the loudspeakers, hoping that Coach Ryuuzaki would hear him.
"Oops, I forgot to announce the name of the dead again. Must be getting old," Coach Ryuuzaki muttered. "Okay, it was Akutagawa Jiroh from Hyoutei who died. Bye-bye!"
"Bye-bye," Eiji replied again, waving.
"What? Akutagawa-senpai? But—why?" Ootori, the only Hyoutei member at hand, cried in surprise. "Senpai is harmless. Who would ever want to kill Akutagawa-senpai?"
"It is weird," Momo agreed. "Who would want to kill someone who does nothing but sleep?"
Since even people who were not around Jiroh felt weird about his death, we could infer that the people who were actually around Jiroh felt very weird about his death.
"This can't be. For Jiroh to die, someone has to kill him. But he had been in his hole for the whole time, and no one entered his hole either. How can anyone kill him this way?" Oishi cried, puzzled. He had been sitting somewhere near Jiroh's hole and could testify that no one had entered or exited it.
"It's like a murder committed in a locked room," Sengoku exclaimed excitedly.
"Ah, so it's a locked-room murder." Oishi and Tachibana nodded.
"Maybe someone dug their way to his hole and murdered him in his sleep. Then the murderer left through the tunnel he dug," Niou suggested.
"Makes sense." Oishi and Tachibana nodded.
"Perhaps Jiroh had a heart attack and died," Yagyuu theorized.
"Might be." Oishi and Tachibana nodded.
"The best thing to do now will be to go to his hole and check," Sanada stated solemnly.
"You're right." Oishi and Tachibana nodded.
So they all went to Jiroh's hole to check, circumnavigating other various troublesome holes as they went. Jiroh's hole was easy to find, for it was star-shaped. He wanted his hole to stand out when he was digging it.
"Jiroh, can you hear me?" Tachibana called downwards, feeling like an idiot.
No one answered.
"It doesn't seem like anyone else is inside. There is no trace of someone having dug their way here either," Oishi observed.
"Good. This means that he had really had a heart attack and died," Yagyuu said, satisfied.
"Ah, so it's a heart attack. Nice," everyone said and went back to their respective places. Oishi was trying to pull the feathers off Gakuto and Mizuki's eagle, Tachibana sat chatting with Shinji near his hole, Niou and Yagyuu were dressing up as each other, and Sanada was attempting to cut open his stomach with his samurai sword because life without Yukimura was just so unbearable. There were no Hyoutei people among them, which was why they cared very little about Jiroh's death.
As for the Hyoutei people, they all had different reactions to the news, unlike the Rikkai people who pretty much acted the same when they heard that their captain was dead.
"I can't believe it," gentle Ootori sobbed.
"I can't believe it," Shishido muttered, looking for boars.
Gakuto was reading comic books.
"Gekokujou. Ah, is that a jaguar? Must be something wrong with my eyes," Hiyoshi, still circling the house, murmured.
"So, you see, what do you do if this whole side is red and this one is green and this one is—" Oshitari pondered, drawing a Rubik's cube on the ground with a stick.
"What? Why did ore-sama's teammate die? Why, Kabaji?" Atobe demanded in his hole.
"Usu."
"—Wait, Kabaji, why are you in ore-sama's hole?"
It seemed that Kabaji, while stuck in his hole, had been digging around with his umbrella, and had arrived at Atobe's place.
"Good. Kabaji, now you're here ore-sama will not be lonely anymore," Atobe uttered his satisfaction.
"Usu."
Atobe didn't realize that he could just step on Kabaji and climb out of his hole. It wasn't a deep one to begin with.
Hour 12
38 contestants remaining
TBC. Thanks for reading! Reviews are very welcome.
To loove it!!: Thanks for the review:D Sorry about the confusion:(
To s-a-w: Thanks for the review:D That would have saved a lot of trouble. Killing twelve in one go...