A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews. I very much appreciate them. This is going to be the final chapter of the story. Thank you for reading until the end. You may hate me for what I did in the ending but the idea has been in my head from the moment I started this fanfic. This isn't going to be happy so I guess I'm going to expect different kinds of reviews for it. Eh heh heh... crosses fingers ;

Disclaimer: Characters depicted in the story aren't mine. They belong to Takeshi Konomi.

A Strange Weekend

Someone was roughly pulling away the blanket draped over his body. Akira Kamio groaned sleepily and jerked the blanket back to him. A few moments passed and someone pulled it away from him again.

"Stop it," Kamio growled in frustration as he yanked it back again, his eyes remaining closed as he did so. But the one interrupting his sleep was insistent and he pulled again. And a tug-of-war with a blanket commenced. The 8th grader was fast loosing his patience and jerked the blanket back to him again.

And caught a handful of long dry hair as he did so.

Long hair? The slow realization flooded through his sleep induced mind and Kamio stilled, his grip on the blanket loosening. Long hair? His mind railed at him again. Who among the students in the center had such long rough hair?

Afraid to open his eyes and see for himself, he turned on his side and pretended to remain asleep. He felt the bed move when that someone stood up from beside him. Kamio took that opportunity to check whoever was interrupting his sleep and opened one eye.

5.30 am, the glowing digital clock on the side table blinked at him. And with the help of the faint morning light peeking through the Venetian blinds, he saw a woman in white standing before the dresser, her stiff back toward him, brushing her hair angrily as if Kamio's accidental pull on her hair had hurt her. Kamio whimpered in fear.

As if hearing that small sound behind her, the woman started to turn back to him and walk toward him. Kamio couldn't take it anymore and he screamed, waking his roommates with the shrill sound.

"Tachibana."

The Fudomine captain straightened up from tying his shoes and looked up at the bronze haired teen standing motionlessly in front of him. Kippei Tachibana sat alone on a bench outside the center and was gearing himself up for his usual early morning run when the Seigaku buchou suddenly appeared. He quickly diverted his gaze back to his shoes and resumed tying them when he saw the same raven-haired, pale-faced phantom still clinging on to the expressionless captain.

Meeting her dead blank gaze once again proved to be truly disconcerting.

"You can see her," Tezuka observed.

"Aa, and so can you," Tachibana was a little surprised at the revelation. He stood up and started warming up his muscles with stretches, careful not to look in Tezuka's direction as he did so, "it's unusual for someone like you to see her as well. It doesn't work that way."

"Sou ka?" Tezuka replied quietly.

"Well? You wanted to say something?" Tachibana asked when Tezuka remained silent beside him.

"I remember the accident."

"I see."

"You were right. I shouldn't be here."

"You're leaving?"

Tezuka nodded in response, "She is being insistent."

"She?" Tachibana frowned in confusion then his gaze settled on the woman clinging on to Tezuka. "Oh, her," the Fudomine buchou nodded toward the phantom draped lovingly around Tezuka's shoulders.

And without Tezuka's affirmation, he, Tachibana, finally understood the situation.

The woman was a shinigami, a god of death, someone who led souls toward the underworld. And she was taking Tezuka with her because he no longer belonged to their world. She smiled mysteriously at the Fudomine ­buchou when their gazes met briefly. "She'll lead you to the other side, huh?"

Tezuka nodded once again and turned to leave, "I'm going to go see Oishi before I go. Arigatou, Tachibana."

"Sayonara, Tezuka. I doubt we would be seeing each other again."

Oishi sat up from his bed and yawned as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. It was a peaceful Sunday morning, the last day they were spending in the convention center, and he felt great. He for one couldn't wait to get back home. Well, not that it's because the place was haunted or anything but because he was missing Tokyo already.

The Seigaku fuku buchou climbed down from the top bunk and headed straight to the bathroom. Realizing that it was already occupied, his gaze rested on the double-decked bed on the Hyotei side. Snoring softly, Akutagawa still occupied the top bunk while the bottom one was empty. Atobe had beaten him to the bath and he couldn't do anything but wait until he finished.

Oishi pulled his overnight bag toward him from under the bed to get fresh set of clothes to wear and sat on Tezuka's already made-up bed. He shook his head in amazement as he looked at the neatly folded bed sheets on top of the pillow. His best friend really liked to keep his things orderly. The bottom bunk didn't even look like it was occupied the night before. He looked around for any stuff Tezuka left lying in the room and chuckled when he found none. Most of the stuff littered on the floor was his, Atobe's, and Akutagawa's.

Tezuka did not misplace any of his items at all. His friend was so organized that no trace of him could be found. It was as if Tezuka wasn't even bunking in the room with them.

The cheerful sound of children playing outside the center caught Oishi's attention. He looked up and saw children laughing and running around outside their bedroom window as they played a game of tag. More and more people were coming to the center, he noticed, making the place livelier than it was when they first arrived.

"Shizuru-chan! You're the ­oni!" A dark haired boy called out to a blonde girl as he tapped her shoulder. The children then ran away from the said girl when she began to give chase. Oishi smiled to himself as he watched the children play. He had always liked kids. And for him, lively children were always a pleasant sight to see early in the morning.

The dark haired boy, who was the previous oni, stopped just outside the Seigaku/Hyotei window, a little smile playing on his lips as he watched his playmates run around. As if sensing that someone was watching him, the boy whirled around and looked straight at Oishi. His smile widened when he saw Oishi and he waved at the older boy. The friendly 9th grader waved back.

The boy then pointed at the window latch as if telling Oishi to open it so that they could talk.

Oishi was about to walk toward the window to do just that when the bathroom door opened. Garbed in a long dark blue bathrobe, Atobe stepped out as he towel dried his dark hair. The Hyotei buchou tipped his head toward the now empty shower area when he found Oishi already awake. "Your turn," Atobe said.

Looking back to the window, Oishi watched the boy run back toward his friends to resume playing tag with them. Changed his mind? Oishi thought and smiled indulgently. He gathered his things from the bed and stepped inside the bathroom. Only to step right back out when he took a strong whiff of Atobe's rather expensive custom-made French perfume inside. He coughed and waved a hand in front of his face to ward off the strong scent. "What did you do, Atobe?" the Seigaku fuku buchou sneezed, "Pour out the whole content of your perfume in the bathtub?" The scent was going to cling on Akutagawa, Tezuka, and him the whole day, he was sure of it.

"Don't be ridiculous," Atobe scoffed with a careless wave of his hand, "the size of that pathetic bathtub only requires less than a quarter of a 50 ml bottle. Now if I were back home, a 100 ml for my daily bath wouldn't even be enough." Atobe was about to say more when he finally noticed the children playing happily outside their room.

Oishi's brows furrowed in confusion when he saw Atobe's features uncharacteristically turn pale at the sight of the children. Maybe he never really liked kids? He reasoned out to himself, remembering how the Hyotei captain reacted when he saw the cute girl Oishi led inside the room last night.

"Doshita, Atobe?"

"Na, Oishi, isn't the other side of that window supposedly a cliff?"

"Whoa, Kuki, you look horrible!" Sengoku laughed as he and Minami saw the Kakinoki captain lounging in the ante room that led to the conference hall where the seminar was going to take place that morning. "You look as bad as Minami here," he said, pointing to his captain who stood beside him.

His scar twitching, Kuki glared at the Yamabuki Reps, "You're sickeningly animated as always, Sengoku. You look like you had a good night's sleep."

"No way," Sengoku quickly countered with a shake of his head, "I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night when I felt an uneasy weight on my chest. I looked and found a girl's head resting on it, asking me ever so politely if I happened to see where her body had gone to!"

Kuki paled at Sengoku's words. He stared at the Yamabuki fuku buchou, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets in disbelief. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out.

"Joudan, joudan!" Sengoku laughed at his joke when Kuki looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Yet, the Kaninoki captain did not move from his spot.

Minami rubbed his temples, "You've shocked him to speechlessness, Sengoku."

"It must have happened to him," the Yamabuki fuku buchou grinned sheepishly. "Warui, Kuki. You okay?" he asked, waving his hand in front of Kuki's face.

Kiichi Kuki remained motionless.

"What's wrong with him?" Oishi asked, looking at Kuki, as he, Atobe, and Akutagawa joined the Yamabuki students.

"Sengoku scared him off with a ghost story," Minami sighed.

"I was only kidding!" Sengoku shrugged his shoulders and was about to say more when he got a whiff of the strong perfume emanating from the three. "Boy, you sure smell alike," he stepped back from them before he lost all ability to differentiate scent.

"Long story," Oishi sighed and looked around. Most of the students were already in the ante room, waiting for the teachers to let them in the conference hall for the seminar.

But there was still no sign of Tezuka.

"Hey, have you guys seen Tez—?"

"Ohayou, minna," Mizuki's greeting interrupted Oishi in mid sentence as he, Akazawa, Tachibana, and Kamio joined the group. "Did everyone sleep well last night?" He asked with a meaningful smile on his face.

"I can tell you didn't, Kamio," Sengoku laughed when he got a good look at the Fudomine junior, "Your eyes are all red."

The red head didn't bother replying. He was still trembling from the experience he had earlier that day.

"Kamio here woke us up when he screamed his lungs out," Akazawa explained, "when we asked what happened, he didn't answer."

"He couldn't answer," Mizuki corrected his captain. "Kamio-kun's—"

"T-The ghost..." Kamio interrupted Mizuki softly, his throat working as he gulped. "The woman... t-told me that I'm... t-that we're..." he trailed off.

"What did she say?" Sengoku was curious.

Kamio gulped yet again, "S-She said that... I'm d-dead."

Six pairs of eyes rounded at Kamio's softly spoken words while Tachibana remained impassive.

"She threatened you?" Akazawa's eyes narrowed at the shaking junior.

"I don't know..." he shook his head in confusion, "it felt like she's warning me of—"

"Okay, boys!" One of the teachers yelled from the open double doors to catch their attention, cutting Kamio off mid sentence, "The seminar will start in a few minutes. Get inside and grab some seats."

As the students moved to do as they were told, Oishi glanced behind him when Tachibana lightly tapped him on the shoulder. "What is it?" he asked.

"Tezuka wants to speak to you," Tachibana answered, gesturing toward the open door leading to the hallway. And true to his words, the Seigaku captain was standing quietly by the doorway, waiting for Oishi to approach him.

"Domo," Oishi said and made a beeline toward his quiet captain. Tachibana watched for a few seconds as the two longtime friends greeted each other, a wide smile placed on the vice captain's face while a stoical expression on the captain's. And then he turned and followed the group inside the conference hall. He wouldn't want to see Oishi's face when Tezuka told him the truth.

"You're late, Tezuka," Oishi was saying, "We should get going now, the seminar is about to start."

"I'm leaving, Oishi."

"What?" the smiling senior asked in surprise, "Like now? We're leaving this afternoon so what's the rush?"

"I don't belong here."

"What are you talking about?" Oishi laughed softly but something at the back of his mind was telling him that something was wrong; the hairs at the back of his neck were suddenly prickling. Was he missing something here? "Come on, buchou, we're late for the training already." He smiled and made a grab for Tezuka's arm to pull him toward the room.

But he only grasped air.

Oishi involuntarily took a step back from his friend. Wide green eyes met steely gray ones. "T-Tezuka?"

"Remember the bus accident, Oishi?" The captain's calm voice cut through the million questions running inside Oishi's confused mind. What's he saying? What accident? Why was Tezuka acting this way? Why couldn't he grab hold of his best friend? Where was he going? How come it felt like he's going to a place where he could never reach him?

What the hell was going on?

"Eh? Where's Oishi-kun?" Mizuki asked when he noticed that the Seigaku vice captain wasn't in the air-conditioned hall with them. As they grabbed their seats, the dark haired data collector inclined his head toward the ante room and saw Oishi standing by the hallway. "What's he doing?"

"Talking to Tezuka, isn't that obvious?" Atobe, who sat beside Mizuki, replied lazily.

Hearing the Hyotei captain's answer, Sengoku swiveled around on his seat to look at them, "Tezuka? He's here?"

"Of course, he's here," Atobe replied dryly, motioning a hand toward the open doors of the hall, "He's been here since yesterday, didn't you notice?"

"He's not here with us, Atobe," Akazawa joined in the conversation.

"What are you talking about?" Atobe scoffed. "He attended the seminar yesterday. He was sitting beside Oishi."

Sengoku, Akazawa, Minami, and Mizuki looked at him as if he already lost his arrogant mind. All four shared a meaningful look before they returned their gazes to Atobe. It was Minami who finally spoke, "The seat beside Oishi yesterday was empty, Atobe. No one was sitting there."

"Tezuka was," the Hyotei Captain insisted, his patience thinning at the disbelieving look they were giving him. Were they playing a stupid joke on him? Well, it wasn't funny. "He was even bunking with us last night," he nudged Akutagawa who was sitting almost half-asleep on his right, "na, Jirou?"

"There were only three of us in the room last night, Atobe," Akutagawa, who half-listened on the conversation, yawned. "The bottom bunk on the Seigaku side was unoccupied."

"Oishi is the only Seigaku representative here," Mizuki added.

Atobe opened his mouth to speak. Then closed it again when no sound came out. For the first time in his life, he was speechless. And was totally unsure of himself. Were they telling the truth? What did this all mean? Atobe's mind replayed all the events that happened from the moment they arrived in the center. And now that he thought about it, the only people who interacted with Tezuka were him and Oishi. Jirou didn't talk to him when they first walked toward their quarters. Nor did he even acknowledge the Seigaku captain when they joined their roommates.

No, it's impossible.

"Are you telling me that what I saw was Tezuka's ghost?" Atobe scoffed in disbelief yet again. But it sounded less convinced and quite unsure even to his own ears. "Are you telling me that he's dead?"

When an uneasy silence met his statement, Tachibana finally spoke up, "Do you guys remember how we got here?"

All heads turned to Tachibana's direction when he placed the seemingly innocent question to them. Akazawa looked away as he thought of the answer, Sengoku leaned back on his cushioned seat in silence, Mizuki stared blankly on the acoustically treated wall of the conference room, Minami closed his eyes, and Atobe narrowed his gaze toward the Fudomine captain. "What does that have to do with any--?"

"We were on a bus," Kamio cut Atobe off and answered for them quietly. "I remember now."

"I heard an explosion," Sengoku added after a while.

"Yes, and the bus was careening out of control," Mizuki said.

"We were falling," Akazawa stated, "and then darkness swallowed us."

"And then, we wake up to find ourselves already here," Minami finished the tale, "as if nothing happened."

Tachibana nodded, "Tezuka isn't the ghost. He's not the one who's dead."

"No," Oishi suddenly said from behind them as he stepped inside the conference hall, "we are."

"Buchou's awake," Kaidoh voice was filled with relief when he noticed Tezuka's eyes slowly open, alerting the rest of the Seigaku team of their captain's state. All seven regulars crowded around the bed to see for themselves that their buchou was indeed all right.

Tezuka's drug induced state made it difficult for him to focus on his surroundings. It took quite a while for him to realize that he was inside a hospital room. The smell of antiseptic permeated in the air. The sound of a strong and constant beeping that monitored his condition filled the uncomfortable silence in the white walled room. His gaze settled on his teammates standing around him, their faces showing different degrees of relief.

"Welcome back, Tezuka," Fuji was the first one to speak.

"T-Tezuka buchou!" Momoshiro cried out, making his captain slightly wince at the loud outburst.

"Baka powerhouse, stop yelling!" Kaidoh was quick to reprimand his rival, causing yet another wince from the captain.

"You shut up, baka mamushi!" Momoshiro retorted as he grabbed a fistful of Kaidoh's shirt in his hand. Before Kaidoh could even speak, Echizen interrupted the two.

"Senpai-tachi, you're going to make buchou wish he's dead because of all the racket you're making."

"Echizen!" This time, all five regulars reprimanded the freshman.

"Gomen."

"Tezuka. How're you feeling?" Kawamura asked, returning all the attention to their captain. Tezuka's throat worked as he tried to speak. A weak sound came out of his mouth and he tried again.

"O-Oishi..."

With that one word, Kikumaru burst out crying. Fuji looked grim as he walked toward Kikumaru and offered a comforting arm around his shoulders. Kaidoh and Momoshiro closed their eyes and fisted their hands at the loss of their sub-captain. Kawamura turned around and was quietly shedding tears as well. Echizen and Inui stood silently and unmoving from their spot. Tezuka closed his eyes, taking in deep breaths to stop himself from weeping for the loss of his best friend as well.

"...he told me..." Tezuka continued weakly, his eyes remaining closed as he spoke, "...that he's happy... to have met... and played with us." He paused as he released a long, shuddering breath. "And he... doesn't want us to... mourn any longer than it is necessary."

Tezuka opened his eyes and looked at his teammates. A slight trembling smile lit at the corner of his lips as he remembered Oishi's final wish. "He told me... to tell you... not to duel in tennis... with dates on the line."

"How is Tezuka-san?" Shinji Ibu asked the moment the Fudomine regulars saw the Seigaku regulars step out of their captain's room. Kikumaru and Momoshiro volunteered to stay with Tezuka in the room for the night. Inui, Fuji, Kaidoh, and Echizen were about to go home when the Fudomine team intercepted them.

"Recovering," Inui answered Ibu's question.

"I'm sorry to hear about Tachibana and Kamio," Fuji said solemnly as he offered his hand in condolences. Shinji accepted it and so did the rest of his team. It was truly a tragic incident that happened in Tokyo's Junior High Tennis Teams. Each team lost its solid foundations, their captain and sub-captain. Seigaku was lucky to at least have one of them back.

"How did this happen anyway?" Sakurai asked. "What happened?"

"The cause of the accident was a front tire-burst," Inui explained, "The bus was climbing the mountain and turning at a sharp point when it happened. The driver lost control of the vehicle and smashed right into the railings. It gave way and the bus fell down the cliff on a thirty feet drop."

"Atobe, Oishi, and Tezuka were found barely alive after the accident and were quickly rushed to the hospital," Fuji took a deep breath, "but only Tezuka survived."