The next day, Ryoma felt much better. She wasn't sad anymore and she put her everything into the training. And she was smiling, truly smiled. The regulars were relieved to see her back to her normal self again. She was so seriously into her training that she even did more than what was requested.
They were doing their jogging and they reached a small suspension bridge.
"Ha…! Ha…! Ha…!" Kirihara panted. "Buchou, can we take a short break? We have been running for hours now!"
"Tezuka, Atobe?" Yukimura asked their opinions. The two buchous nodded to him, agreeing.
"Very well," Yukimura said. "We can rest a little bit."
"Thank you!" the boys answered.
Momoshiro and Gakuto slumped to the ground. Kirihara and Jirou lay down on their back on the grass. Marui and Niou took their time to sit down next to them. Kaido sat on a big rock. Kawamura and Ootori did the same. Oshitari and Ooishi took sips from their bottles of water. Sanada leaned against a tree. Yukimura also chose a rock to sit on. Fuji, Yagyuu and Yanagi preferred to stand up, enjoying the fresh breeze. Inui was holding his stopwatch, checking the time. Kabaji gave Atobe a towel so Atobe could wipe his sweat. Tezuka, standing up, watched everyone.
Ryoma, who was behind, finally joined them after a couple of minutes. It was a disadvantage to have the shortest legs in the team. She decided to change that.
"Because I was behind, I'm going ahead. Meet you again up there later," she said, still jogging her legs. And she crossed the bridge.
"Ah! Echizen/Ochibi!" Kirihara, Momoshiro and Kikumaru called her. But she already disappeared from their view.
Tezuka slightly smiled, very happy to see her like that. Yukimura and Yagyuu smiled too as they watched her. But Tezuka was disappointed by something else.
"How can you let a girl go ahead of you when she was late and far behind you!" Tezuka snapped.
"Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!" the regulars cringed.
"If you are still tired, you can drink my latest creation. It will immediately make you feel vigorous again," Inui said, showing his bottle of juice.
"Yadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Their echo spread into the mountain, scaring the birds away.
-
"Huh?" Ryoma looked behind her, from where she saw the birds flying away. "Is somebody dying?" And they seemed to be in a lot of pain. "Bah! Not my business!" She continued to run ahead.
-
Back to the boys. They preferred to cut their break short rather than having to drink Inui's (crappy) juice. They hastily sprinted after Ryoma.
"Ochibiiiiiii! Why you!!" Kikumaru wailed.
"You sadistic evil monster!" Kirihara chained. The others agreed with them, but didn't say it. Fuji and Yukimura chuckled.
Night.
They finished supper. It was time for the meeting. Before the meeting started, Yanagi and Inui talked with Yukimura.
"Yukimura," Yanagi simply said. Yukimura nodded to him, understanding the unvoiced question.
"You can tell now," Yukimura said. Yanagi and Inui nodded. Then, they went into the room where everybody was waiting for them.
Inui and Yanagi moved in front of the room, where a projector was prepared for their disposition. The regulars were sat in front of them, waiting patiently for them to start.
"As you know, we will play against Germans this time. So we are going to introduce to you the players of the Germany team," Yanagi started while Inui plugged his laptop to the projector and pulled down a white screen.
All the regulars discreetly slipped a glance at Ryoma, who was looking at the white screen, waiting for Yanagi and Inui to continue. They were anxious. How will she react? And Sakaki-coach and Ryuuzaki-sensei were also looking at her. Yanagi and Inui looked a last time to Yukimura, who nodded to them. Yanagi clicked on the PLAY button. On the screen, Ryoma saw appearing the pictures of eight foreigner tall guys, aligned one next to the other.
'Huh? What?! No way!' Ryoma's face lost all color. She blinked. 'It-it can't be…' She shut her eyes, refusing to look at the screen. 'Calm down… Calm down… It must be my imagination…' She took a deep breath. 'Let's try to look more carefully again at the pictures…'
Slowly, she opened her eyes. The contrast of the black room with the light of the screen made her vision blurry. Little by little, the image got clearer. Slowly again, Ryoma raised her eyes to the screen. First, from the bottom. Then, the middle of the screen. And finally, the whole screen.
'N-no… I-it cant' be… I-it's not my imagination…'
Ryoma's lips trembled. She stared blindly at the screen. From the right to the left, the bald one, the pink skin one, the long face with red-brown hair one, the bandanna, the blue-grey cap, the black with bleach hair, the bony face and the light blond hair boy.
'It's… It's really them…'
Everything around her became pitch black, except the screen with the eight pictures. Ryoma's fingers twitched. Then, slowly, they curled into fists. The beating of her heart gradually became louder in her ears. Little by little, its rhythm ran faster and its pumping got stronger. Her whole body tensed. Then stiffened. Her blood froze in her veins. From inside her heart, a small fire was starting to ignite. Then, the fire, which was red, turned black. Suddenly, the tiny fire grew dangerously big, devouring all her heart. Ryoma stopped breathing. No oxygen could enter her body anymore. The lack of oxygen caused her blood to darken until they became black too, like petrol. Feeding on the petrol-blood, the fire exploded and ran all over through her body, to every place where there was blood. A storming desire for revenge consumed her heart and her mind. Her good conscious voice, which was desperately trying to reason her, got burned away, killed by the raging fire. Only left in Ryoma were darkness and murderous thoughts. She lost herself to her black heart.
Suddenly, something cool covered her closed fists.
'AH!'
Ryoma snapped out of her reverie and the room appeared again in her eyes. Ryoma blinked twice, now awake up and back to reality.
"Ryoma, calm down," Fuji, who sat next to her, whispered to her in a deep and smooth voice. And he dropped her suffix "-chan", which was enough to surprise her. Under the table, Fuji squeezed her hands. The coolness of his hands entered her skin and went inside her. From where he touched her, her blood became purified. It lost its thick texture of oil and returned back to its normal state of red blood. Slowly, that coolness ran up to her heart and extinguished the black fire. And from the heart, it ran down through her other veins, purifying all the oil blood in the other parts of her body.
Fuji squeezed her hands harder, refusing to release them until he could feel all the anger inside her completely extinguished. Then, the coolness of his hand transformed into a gentle warmth, which brought peace to her heart. Ryoma took a deep breath, allowing new oxygen to enter her. Her heart restarted to beat in a normal pace. A new light lit in her head and in her heart. It was her good conscious, which was reborn again.
'Calm down… Calm down…' it said, just like Fuji.
Ryoma took another breath. Her heart beat again, activating the circulation of her blood. She took a third breath. The circulation of her blood went back to normal. Slowly, she uncurled her hands. But they were still shaking. And so were her lips. She bit them to make them stop.
"Shhh…" Fuji gently hushed, still not releasing her hands.
Ryoma took a very big breath, held it in, then breathed out. Her hands and her lips stopped trembling. The blood ran up to her pale cheeks and gave them back their pink peach tint. She closed her eyes, waiting. When she felt that her heart and mind were at peace again, she opened her eyes. Slowly, she turned to meet with Fuji's gentle cerulean eyes. She opened her mouth, but it was her eyes which said "Thank you" to him. He smiled tenderly to her, his hand still covered hers, but gently now. Seeing his tender smile, Ryoma's eyes widen and her cheeks turned a dark shade of red. Then, she too smiled back to him. Fuji nodded to her and the two of them turned to listen to Yanagi and Inui again. Fuji didn't let go of her hands.
When the other regulars and Yuuta saw Ryoma's smile, they inwardly sighed out of relieve. Then, they smiled too.
'Echizen!/Ochibi!/Ryoma!' they thought. And they too turned their attention back to Yanagi and Inui, a smile tugging their lips.
But Sakaki-coach, who didn't stop watching Ryoma from the beginning, wasn't smiling.
'You did well Echizen, but…' he thought.
"Ah! Ryuuzaki-sensei!" Kaido exclaimed in panic, jumping from his seat.
Hearing Kaido's exclamation, everybody turned their head to Ryuuzaki-sensei, who was kneeling on the floor, a hand grabbing her chest area. From the expression of her face, she was in pain, in a lot of pain.
"Sensei!"
The regulars were going to gather around her, but Inui blocked their way.
"Step aside!" he shouted.
Only Yanagi and Yagyuu were permitted to go near the suffering old woman.
"Call the ambulance!" Atobe said. Gakuto went to do it.
May, who came upon hearing people shouting, immediately ran to Ryuuzaki-sensei when she saw her in pain. Before becoming a maid, she was trained as a nurse, so she knew what do to. While Yanagi unfasten Ryuuzaki-sensei's clothes, May checked Ryuuzaki-sensei's heart beat and pulse.
"It's a heart attack," May said.
Yagyuu and May looked to each other. Then, they nodded. May performed the artificial respiration while Yagyuu did the CPR by chest compression.
After a moment, Yagyuu talked.
"Dame da (2)," he said. "She cannot wait until the arrival of the ambulance."
Since it took an hour to get to the mansion from the village, the fastest speed the ambulance could get to their place would be half an hour. But going uphill and down again, it would be more than one hour before they get to a hospital.
"Let's bring her down to the village by car! It will be faster than having the ambulance come up here!" Yanagi said.
Enzou left outside to start the car. May went outside the room and immediately came back with a black bag. From inside, she took out a syringe and injected something to Ryuuzaki-sensei.
"This should help her to hold a little bit longer," May said. "Help me carry her out!"
"Kabaji!" Atobe called.
"Usu!"
Carefully, Yagyuu and Yanagi put Ryuuzaki-sensei on Kabaji's shoulders and they ran outside, where Enzou was waiting for them in front of the door. The others followed them outside, but stayed aside to give them room. Yagyuu and Yanagi laid the old teacher on the back seat. May sat next to her.
Sakaki-coach turned to the three buchous.
"I will go with her. I leave everything in your hands!" Sakaki-coach said.
"Hai!" Atobe and Tezuka answered while Yukimura nodded.
Sakaki-coach glanced at all them a last time before climbing in the car on the passenger seat. No one said anyhing as they watched the car flying away at full speed.
On the way to the hospital, Sakaki-coach was thinking about what happened today. Today was the last day for Ryoma to prove herself. During the meeting, she didn't let her anger out of her. She was able to grow up a little bit psychologically, but…
'But…' he thought.
But right now, the most important was Ryuuzaki-sensei. They reached the small village under the mountain and met face to face with the ambulance. Ryuuzaki-sensei was immediately carried away. May climbed in the ambulance with Ryuuzaki-sensei. Sakaki-coach followed the ambulance with Enzou.
Sakaki-coach wasn't worried about the regulars. With Yukimura and Tezuka to take his place, he could be in peace. However, Sakaki-coach forgot about something…
(1) futon: Japanese mattress;
(2) dame da: it's not possible, it won't work.
A/N: For the readers of "Everyday with Rin", just to let you know, I'm still working on it. It just that I don't stop rewritting over and over again the same chapter. I just rewrote it again two days ago. It's because I focuse more on "Seiyou Acadmey", where I have more ideas. But the new chapter is taking a clearer form now. Thank you for your patience.