Part 5: The Shohoku connection.

"Ok, shall we move on to Shohoku?" Hikoichi asked, obviously was not comfortable with the attention given to the Ryonan's ace.

Everyone agreed.

"Of all the teams involved, Team Shohoku is the type of team that might pull the prank on you guys."

Maki raised his eyebrows. Indeed...Why?

"Why?" Jin asked.

"Ohhh....." Hikoichi started to reveal his information. "All I heard are rumours. Mitsui had a fight with Miyagi, hospitalised cos of that. It made him unavailable in our practise match against Shohoku last time. Of course, Sakuragi practically head-butted everyone on his way, managed to get into few fights with Miyagi and Mitsui too. Well, he did have a fight with Akagi too. And surprisingly, Rukawa was also involved, the fight with Mitsui. And....."

"I also heard he beat some third years students on the rooftop just because the men...."Hikoichi gulped. How can I explain this reason? "disturbed his sleep."

Nobody said anything. Reminder: Do not disturb Rukawa while sleeping.

"Hmm.... and Akagi managed to glue the team together? He must be a better captain than I thought. And here I am, complaining about Kiyota."

"Maki-san!" Kiyota protested.

"Let's see who could fit into our profile." Hikoichi started to direct his connection to Shohoku. "Shohoku High School doesn't keep its student records online, however, we can access its basketball club members' profiles, since Haruko, the assistant manager keeps her files on the server." In five minutes, Hikoichi managed to hack into Haruko's file.

"Miyagi is too short, Akagi is too well-built. So we can skip those two."

"Mitsui. Improved his academic record since he re-joined the basketball club. English marks fluctuate between A and B. He's good."

Maki looked at the three-pointer specialist. Blue hair, dark blue eyes and strong muscle. He was a handsome man, a little on the rugged side. He was also the type who could be a flirt if he wanted to and go all the way to reach his goal. Then, Maki noticed something.

"The man doesn't have a scar. Mitsui does. But I guessed there's nothing a make-up couldn't hide."

"hhm...Sakuragi?" Hikoichi clicked on Sakuragi. In no time at all, Sakuragi's profile appeared.

"That red-hair monkey! He got B in his English." Then, a more interesting data captured Kiyota's attention. "ha ha ha!!! He only got 20 in his Mathematics exam! Ha ha ha ha! What an idiot!" Kiyota declared.

"And how much did you get? Jin asked Kiyota, raising his eyebrow.

"Twenty-four!" Kiyota answered proudly.

"That is NOT something to be proud of! " argued Jin.

"Hmmm....." Hikoichi thought out loud. "Just for your information, Sakuragi and Rukawa have the highest jump in the whole prefecture, in fact, in the whole country. And both of them can run really fast too. Not up to Miyagi's speed of course, but fast enough."

"NYAHAHAHA!!!!! ORE WA TENSAI!!!!!!"

"YIKES! WAAHH!!!" They were taken by surprise with the sudden twist of event.

WHAT THE HELL??? The four high school students sprawled on the floor, Jin rubbed his heart, Kiyota closed his ears after listening to that shout and Hikoichi and Maki tried to get back on their seats, in front of the computer.

"What the hell is that???" Maki asked.

The computer screen showed a picture of an animated Sakuragi, in the red Shohoku uniform, with his hands on his hips and singing the infamous Ore Wa Tensai song. Then, new animated figures of what could have been Mitsui and Miyagi appeared, giving Sakuragi the back-up vocals, completed with poms poms. Suddenly, an animated figure of Rukawa appeared in front of the trio. He only said "Do'aho" and disappeared again. Sakuragi wanted to chase Rukawa away, but Akagi appeared in the shape of gorilla and gave Sakuragi his patented punch. The whole scene was repeated again, with the whole song.

"Ahhh!!! My eardrums!" Kiyota shouted.

Jin looked at the screen, wide-eyes and still in the state of shock. All of sudden, he shouted to Hikoichi, who managed to get his place on the seat.

"Shut it down! GET OUT!!"

Hikoichi quickly disconnected. The program stopped running.

"What was that??" Maki asked.

"It's a virus." Jin explained. "Apparently, whoever trying to hack into Shohoku's Basketball Members Profile will get it. They waited about a minute for us to establish the connection. Then, they sent us the Sakuragi's Tensai program, or that virus to us."

Jin took over from Hikoichi, the latter was still in the state of shock. He clicked on the new downloaded virus and checked its properties.

"Can you get it out?" Maki asked again.

"Well…." Jin shook his head. "This virus is quite persistent. It attached itself to our booting system. We can't delete or destroy it without destroying the whole system. Apparently, somebody in Shohoku is smart enough to write this program to get back at whoever who's trying to check their files. But the good news is, it's only gonna be in our computer for about a month before it expired."

Jin hesitated. Maki nudged him to continue. "And the bad news?"

"How do we explain to the General when he sees the self-proclaimed Tensai singing his song with a bunch of Shohoku's players whenever he's using the computer? For one month?"

Good question, how?

"Ahhh!!!" Hikoichi realised.

"Nooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!" Kiyota shouted, apparently the most traumatise event in his life.

They were mourning in a quiet room for about five minutes before Hikoichi broke the silence.

"So, Shohoku members are suspected because they have the nerve to pull the prank over you guys?"

The Kainan members nodded. "From what you told me about them, yea. They have the reputation, and as much as I hate to admit it, they do have the guts to pull something crazy like this. And who in the world that were… cruel enough to write a Sakuragi's Tensai program apart from those bunch?" Maki asked.

Good point.

"This is a mess. I will face General Takatoh first thing tomorrow morning, trying to explain to him about this." Maki said again. "In the meantime, do we have any other suspects?"

"Well… there is Oda from Takezano High School. He's almost as tall as Sakuragi. And he had a reason to pull the prank on you because they lost to Kainan in the preliminaries." Hikoichi stated.

Maki remembered Oda. That tall Takezono ace who have pledge to beat Kainan. "He could be the one that fit the description."

Everyone agreed. He has the description and the motive. Sendoh fit the personality of the thief, while Shohoku's members were the only group they could think that has the gut to do something like this. While Oda, none of the players have any data on him. That is why they decided to go to Takezono tomorrow.

"Sendoh and Oda are the top suspects in the list, from the information we got. Somehow... I have the feeling those bunch from Shohoku are involved, but I can't tell you how. Mitsui could be the one that fit the description. He could be tall enough."

"Ahh!!" Jin remembered something. "We forgot to check on Kogure and Rukawa and other members!

"But anyway…" Maki continued. "I think we have enough suspects in this case. Let's start with Oda, tomorrow." Maki said.

Tuesday morning: Shohoku Locker Room

"Ohayo Kogure-san" wished the petite lady.

"Ohayo Haruko. Everything's ok this morning?"

Haruko's eyes glimmered. "Yep." She smiled the evil smile.

"Haruko… something happened right?"

Haruko grinned. "Somebody hacked into my files last night. He did manage to check on Mitsui and Sakuragi's profile, but that's all. Hmm…it seems Sakuragi got back at them."

"Oh oh…and here I am thinking that we don't have to use that program at all." Kogure understood.

Haruko just nodded happily.

"Do you know who?" Kogure asked again.

"Yep, I traced the IP address…"

"And…?"

"Let's just say… General Takatoh will have a heart-attack with Sakuragi's song. And Maki will need to find out how in the world the Team Shohoku managed to find its way into the Kainan computer." Haruko grinned.

And at that moment, Kogure ALMOST pity the Kainan captain.

-tbc-