Max left Kyoko by the stage. He said he had to get back to his classroom and help with the Tea Cafe. A crowd of people surrounded the stage. Whatever was going to happen, it was a huge event. Kyoko joined the throng of people getting as close as she could to the center of attention. A student walked up on stage with a microphone to address the crowd. He wore a black top hat to go along with his school uniform of a buttoned-up white shirt and black slacks. It was an interesting sight.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Nick and I'll be your MC for this event. You're all probably wondering just what this event is exactly. We've kept it a secret and only put "main event" in the brochures you all received when arriving," Nick explained for everyone gathered to hear. "We're going to be playing Bingo. But not just any Bingo. It's going to be Princess Bingo."

Kyoko's heart beat faster upon hearing that. She kept her princess obsession quite but those who knew her well were aware that she was a princess fanatic. "If you look around you," he said flourishing his arms to get everyone to look around, "there are students wearing red aprons. They are selling Bingo cards 5 bucks apiece. With a card, you get a stamp to mark it. You are certainly welcome to buy more than just one."

Kyoko saw the students he was mentioning. Some looked embarrassed to have eyes on them while others were basking in the attention striking poses to make themselves stand out. "The way the game is going to work is this: a clue about a princess story will be read out and you have to figure out who the clue is referring to as well as find that person on your card. We'll be playing to blackout - meaning all spots on a card have to be marked in order to win," Nick explained while walking around the stage. He was clearly enjoying his role. Kyoko was impressed at how comfortable he was with public speaking. It didn't seem to phase him at all to be in front of a crowd. "What's the prize for the winner you ask?" He said wiggling his eyebrows. "We'll turn the winner into a fairy princess! Girls will get the opportunity to walk on stage as a fairy princess while the local news crew films. Guys will have the opportunity to gift the fairy princess walk to a lady of their choice." Now Kyoko was really excited.

"You'll have 15 minutes to buy cards and get last minute food and drinks before the start of the game," he said while holding his arm up with something in his hand. "Starting now!" He said pushing the button on the stopwatch he had raised up. Kyoko enjoyed the dramatization as she made her way to the closest student. There were enough students scattered around that no one had to wait long to get their cards. Kyoko only bought one. Just one would be plenty enough fun. Plus, she always had good luck with these types of games.

She ate her fill earlier and still had the water Max gave her. So she waited off to the side for the game to start after she got her card and stamp. The stamps to mark the cards with were cheap, dollar store stamps. Kyoko was relieved. Bingo dobbers could be messy if one wasn't careful with them. These stamps would be easy to use without a table.

While she waited, students carrying folding chairs started walking in front of the stage setting the chairs up for seats. That's a good idea. It could be a while before there's a winner. If people get too tired of standing, they'll walk away and won't finish the game. Everyone made room for the students who were quickly setting up seats.

It wasn't long before all the players were seated and Nick walked back up on stage. Kyoko noticed a table had been added to the stage with a big pink bucket sitting on it. Five students sat at the table to the left of the bucket. "The clues will be drawn from the pink princess bucket," Nick said. "I will read them off twice over the microphone so everyone can hear. Then I will give the clue to the students sitting here at the table who will keep track of them to help determine a winner later on." Nick flourished his arm at the students on stage with him. They were all girls and flushed pink at being the center of attention.

"Now, I will not be the one drawing the clues. For that, each grade has offered up a prince to help out," he pointed to the right of the stage as four young men walked up each wearing a different outfit. Kyoko saw a familiar pirate outfit in the group. "These dashing princes were picked because they are the fastest in their grade. Princes have to be athletic after all," Nick told the crowd. Kyoko had a feeling the pirate prince didn't want to be up there. Even without the disgruntled look on his face, this didn't seem quite his thing.

The four princes lined up in front of the table and sat on the stage so that the girls behind them were still visible.

"We are about to get this game in full swing, our freshman representative will start us off by picking the first clue," Nick said as he grabbed the bucket off the table. "But before I have him do that, there's something I would like to tell you all," he said as he looked down on the crowd intensely. "…you have just lost the game," his face smirked as he said the last word.

It took the students and guests a moment to register what he said before people started shouting out. A lot of "Augh!" was heard as people put their heads in their hands at learning they lost the game. Students yelled out at Nick and booed at him to get off the stage. Some looked confused as to what was going on while others chuckled at the fun joke.

All the while Nick stood on stage laughing at all the reactions. "Sorry, sorry," he said when he finally got his laughter under control. "I couldn't help it. The opportunity was too perfect to pass up," he wiped tears from his eyes as he handed the bucket to Max to pick the first clue. Kyoko noticed Max was glaring at him. He picked a clue from the bucket and handed it to Nick while passing the bucket on to the next prince.

Nick grabbed it to read for everyone to hear. "Okay, everyone, we're starting for real now. I have the first clue picked by our Freshman pirate prince Max!" Some students in the background cheered to show their support for their year mate. From Kyoko's seat, she could tell his face got a little pink from the cheers before he looked away to hide his face.

"Here's the first clue, which princess owns 20 corkscrews?" He waited a few moments before reading it again and passing the clue off to one of the girls. Kyoko smirked at the hint. It was a more difficult one. She knew the answer because she had belted out the song plenty of times as a kid. Granted, as a kid, she had no idea what the thingamabobs actually were. She realized it when she saw the singalong song as an adult.

She looked down at her Bingo card to see if Ariel was listed on it anywhere. The name stood out quickly. Ariel was under column B.

The game continued in that fashion for a while. Kyoko knew all the answers but not all of them were on her card. Questions were about more than just the princesses but about other characters in their stories as well. Kyoko was enjoying the game immensely as she marked off Maximus from Tangled under O. That left her with only 2 spaces left to fill in. Others had already called Bingo but they all had errors in their cards. When the girls on stage checked the cards against their records of what had been called, there were mistakes. So the game continued.

The answer to the next question was Elinor from Brave. Kyoko looked over her card but didn't see the Queen's name anywhere. Nick called off the next clue, "Who sings the line 'Never had a friend like me!'?" That was an easy one, Genie, and one of the two she had left. Now she was down to one.

"Bingo!" Kyoko heard from the crowd behind her. A little girl brought her card up to the stage to be checked over. After a few minutes, Nick brought the microphone up to his mouth and announced it was another false bingo and the game would continue. The young girl walked back to her parents looking upset.

Kyoko only had one spot left to mark off. It was Tiana from Princess and the Frog. She waited anxiously for Nick to call out the next clue. The senior prince picked the clue and handed it over to be read. "Which princess was friends with a firefly who was in love with Evangeline?" Nick read out. Kyoko's mouth dropped as she heard it.

"Bingo!" She yelled out before even marking her card. She got out of her seat and brought her card up to the stage. She marked Tiana off right before handing it to Nick who brought it over to the girls to check the answers. Kyoko was confident that she got everything correct but she was still nervous. Several people had called bingo only to discover their card had errors.

She waited anxiously as Nick picked up the microphone and announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner!" Kyoko only just barely contained a squeal of delight, but she couldn't stop her face from breaking out in a huge grin. The crowd clapped and cheered for her. There were a few who groaned at losing.

Nick invited her up on stage so she walked over to the stairs and made her way up. "Congratulations! Could you tell us the name of our winner please?" he asked holding the mike up for her to speak into it.

"Kyoko Mogami," she said leaning in a little to make sure her voice was picked up.

"Well Ms. Mogami, you've won the bingo challenge! Now you get to dress up like a fairy princess and be escorted by the princes to get a photo." The four young men, including Max, who had been sitting on the stage picking clues got to their feet and walked over to Kyoko. The girls brought the crown and a rainbow tye-dyed cloak with a wand. The crown was cheap plastic with plastic jewels. They put it on her head and put the wand in her hand. The wand was all glitter. She was going to have fun getting it out of her clothes later. Glitter always got everywhere.

The cloak was put around her shoulders and Kyoko used the broach to tie it in front of her. The cloak was of good quality even though the other items were cheap. It had the colors of the rainbow on it. Kyoko liked it quite a bit. She was thinking of using it as a throw blanket on her couch. It was floor-length and would be perfect to warm up under.

"Before our Fairy Princess Kyoko goes to get her picture taken, we would like her help with the school song," as Nick was speaking students came striding in around the stage taking their places. Kyoko watched as they organized themselves. They had planned everything meticulously. Even though there were several students, no one bumped into each other and found their designated spot easily. By the time everyone had filed in, there were around 100 students waiting patiently for their school song to start.

Kyoko was paying so much attention to the students that she didn't realize a giant gong was being rolled onto the stage from the back. She only noticed the gong because the person pushing it caught her attention, Sho. She had no idea what he was doing but the students weren't phased by his presence. Apparently, he was part of this part of the show. He wheeled the gong over to her with a big, friendly grin on his face.

She immediately felt like a trap was coming. There was no way he would look that friendly at her. "I had a feeling you would win," he said to her as he approached. He took a mallet of the stand and gave it to her. "When Nick gives the signal, hit the gong as hard as you can with this." Kyoko could only nod as she tried to figure out his ulterior motive. Maybe he's being nice because of the audience? He definitely wasn't going to be nice for her sake.

He suddenly smacked her back near the collar of her shirt saying, "good luck!" and walked away. His smirk was mischievous. He's definitely up to something. But the students still looked like everything he had done was part of the plan. Nick went back to the center of the stage to start up the event. Kyoko noticed that the table the girls had been sitting at and their chairs had been moved off stage. The princes were standing in a row behind Nick.

"We're about to start our school song. We will have Fairy Princess Kyoko hit the gong to start us off. And don't forget, we have the local TV crew here recording live," he said pointing over to the left at a camera set up point at the stage. The people in charge of the camera waved to the crowd. Kyoko had forgotten that Nick mentioned something about TV crews earlier. She felt a bit embarrassed to be on stage in her current get up being recorded for all to see. No, I'm going to enjoy myself. She thought as she turned away from the crew and gave her attention back to Nick. She was having fun, and she wasn't going to let a little bit of embarrassment ruin that for her.

"Fairy Princess Kyoko, are you ready?" He asked looking over at her. She nodded in response. "Can you get us started then, please?"

Kyoko took a stance in front of the gong and brought the mallet up. She swung as hard as she could making the percussion instrument reverberate in the air. The students started up their school song singing it loudly and clearly for the crowd to hear.

Kyoko thought the show of school pride was a beautiful moment. The students had worked hard to make their festival a success and they did a wonderful job with it.

She was enjoying listening to the song when she felt her shirt getting tugged. It happened suddenly and powerfully. The cloak she was wearing, along with her button-up shirt, was ripped right off from behind. Her buttons went flying out in front of her as she was left standing there shirtless in front of the crowd.

Being one of the princes was the last thing Max had wanted to do. The school took the fastest run times out of each grade and made those individuals participate. Unfortunately, he was the fastest in his grade.

He went through the motions he had been assigned. He was surprised to see that Kyoko won. It was a little more interesting having the winner be someone he knew. She looked happy dressed up in the Fairy Princess outfit. The officer who had volunteered to help set up brought the gong on stage, wheeling it over to her. She was positioned all the way to the left of the stage by herself. The students were intentionally not assigned near her so that the Fairy Princess could stand out as much as possible.

Max watched the officer giver her a slap on the back. Is that appropriate? Especially since she's pregnant. Can her body handle being treated like that? He worried as he watched. He noticed the officer's hand lingered a few seconds longer on her back than it should have. Max thought his behavior was odd but it seemed harmless enough. Kyoko looked surprised but unharmed.

She rang the gong at Nick's direction, and the students followed up with their song. Next to the stage where Kyoko was standing, the school flag was being raised. It was slow at first, but as the students reached a fast part of the song, those raising the flag pulled on their ropes as fast as they could sending the flag shooting up.

Max watched in horror as the flag quickly went up and Kyoko's cloak and shirt were ripped off of her to everyone's surprise. She stood in shock in just her bra and pants before reacting. She covered her stomach with her arms and crouched down trying to hide her body behind her legs.

Ren was sitting at his desk looking up information about Kayla Cord, the wife of his victim. He'd already checked into her social media profile but now he was checking into her professional life. He was looking to see if he could find anything that spoke about her behavior or personality. He had Kanae looking up the same information on Kylie Walker. Kylie was John's wife, the first person he had interviewed with Kyoko. Ren had clues as to what happened to the victim, Sean Cord, but he needed more evidence to prove it.

The office TV was on a local news station. It usually was. It mostly existed for background noise and provided a brief distraction when someone was overwhelmed by their work. Ren usually didn't pay much attention to it.

He was staring in its general direction trying to connect some clues in his head when it caught his attention. They were showing a school event. Ren knew the school. It was in the neighborhood he drove through to get home. It looked like the students were putting on quite the show. In the corner, he noticed someone who looked familiar.

"Kanae, is that Kyoko?" He asked pointing at the TV. Kanae looked up from her laptop and squinted at the screen.

"I think so. That school is in the same neighborhood as the church she's working in this week. I know the school and church have ties. It wouldn't surprise me if she was there to support the kids. But what is she doing in that getup?" Kanae said sounding disgusted. Kyoko was wearing a crown and had a tie-dyed cloak around her shoulders. It was certainly an interesting look.

Ren watched as she hit the gong and the kids started singing their school song. A flag started going up beside her just off stage. Ren saw some rope moving hesitantly behind her. That's weird. He thought as he watched.

The song picked up in pace and the flag-raising matched the change in tempo. It suddenly shot upward. Ren's mouth dropped in shock as he watched Kyoko's shirt get ripped off her as the flag flew upwards. She stood there processing what happened for a moment before throwing her arms over her center and crouching down. One of the students standing on center stage paced over to her taking his jacket off and covering her with it. The student seemed to be dressed as a pirate with a cutlass at his side.

The news cut from the scene preventing him from seeing any more. "It looks like we've lost connection," the anchorman said nervously. Clearly, they had cut the feed to save from further embarrassment.

Dun Dun Dun, now you all know what Sho was up to. The conclusion of this shocking event will be in the next chapter.

Which may or may not be next week. For the next two weeks, I might run into the same trouble I did during Thanksgiving which prevented me from writing. Hopefully not. If all goes well, you'll have a chapter with Ren in it during Christmas week. But unfortunately, I can't promise it. Fell free to drop into Discord (link in profile) to ask about if the update will be on time.

I'll explain 'the game' for those who are unfamiliar with it. It has one rule. The moment you think about the game you've lost. I saw a post on facebook about it when I first started thinking about putting a public contest in the story. I couldn't resist having the MC have some fun with it.

Thank you for all the comments!

-Besma0003