Chapter 22: Prefecturals

Disclaimer: I do not own Free! Iwatobi Swim Club

"The girls have been jumpy for the past week…" Rei crosses his arms, watching the girls sitting on the ground being silent.

"They are never this silent." Nagisa gives Rei a worried look.

"Should we do something? They are as quiet as Haru-senpai." Rei asked worriedly. Makoto stood silently as he watched the girls not talk nor play around as they always do during swim practice.

"We have to keep focusing on prefecturals, its tomorrow." reminded Rei.

…..

"Everyone's noticing that we have been acting strange." Gou whispers to Bo.

"I know, I can hear them from here." Bo puts her head on her knees. "We have to calm down a bit." She suggested.

"Calm down? Don't you remember what happened last week?" Gou harshly whispers. "We were almost killed by an unknown entity or who knows the man in chains! I don't think calming down is the best suggestion Bo. We have to find him."

"Think more about this Gou!" Bo raises her voice, casting attention from the swimmers. Bo gets and pulls Gou to the girl's changing room. "Gou, I know you are upset but think about this more clearly. We don't know where he lives, what he looks like, and/or he might be working for someone. We have no clues except that he's targeting the both of us." Bo explains to her with a scowl.

"I know that…" Gou tightens her fist. "But I can't sit around and wait for him to actually kill us." Gou runs her fingers through her hair in distress. The room became silent and filled with a dark, tense aura. Then Gou's phone goes off, cutting the silence.

"Onii-chan?" Gou answers her phone, surprised that her brother called.

"Come to dad's grave after practice. Please it's important." Rin asked her.

"Okay, I will." Gou agreed and hung up.

"No practice with me today then?" Bo spoke up.

"Not now Bo just…not now." Gou storms out of the room and went back to coaching the team.

After Practice…

"Nagisa is back to his original self now." relieved Makoto as he walked Gou back home. Gou doesn't respond and kept walking, not paying attention to him. "Amakata-sensei really helped him…" he tried to continue but to no avail. She was in her own little world.

"Gou…" he calls, grabbing her arm. "What's wrong?"

Gou snaps out of it and gives him a surprised look to him.

"I have to go! I just remembered something! Bye!" she kisses his cheek and runs off.

At a Grave…

"Sorry I'm late!" Gou apologizes to Rin as she rushes up to her father's grave. They stood straight at his grave and did their prayers.

"Gou I want to give this to you." Rin said, handing her an old photo of a young boy at a public swimming pool with a few other boys. "That's dad when he was young." He said looking straight at his father's gravestone.

"What really!?" Gou looked at the photo. "Why are you giving this to me?"

"I don't need it anymore. Put up somewhere like the swimming center or something." He shrugs with his sharp toothy grin.

"Okay!" Gou smiles happily and puts the picture over her heart. "Good luck tomorrow onii-chan!"

"Don't get cocky." He laughs and starts to walk away with Gou chasing after him. Then she felt a sudden feeling of being watched. She stops in her tracks and turns around. At their family grave there was man with reddish-brown hair staring at her with a sad expression.

He seemed so familiar to her somehow like they met before. The man notices that she was looking at him and gives her a sad smile and narrows his eyes lovingly. Gou stood there unable to look away from the mysterious man.

"Gou let's go!" Rin shouts.

"Coming!" she turns and shouts back. She looks over her should to look at the man again but he wasn't there anymore.

At the Beach…

"Excuse us ma'am but we will like to ask you a few questions about the sea monster incident?" Riki asked an elderly woman that was walking along the port.

"Okay." The elderly woman agreed.

"Do you remember seeing these two leave the area when the sea monster mysteriously disappeared?" Riki held a zoomed-in picture of the two girls and showed it to the old woman.

"No but they do look familiar…" the old woman scratched her chin. "The red-head looks like Matsuoka Gou. Oh she's such a darling girl! Her brother is one of the best swimmers I've seen!" she bragged.

"How about the blonde?" Riki pointed to the other girl.

"Oh gosh darn it what was her name? Wata-Wataru no thatsn not it." The woman mumbled. "Watanaka no… Watanuki… maybe…sorry I really don't remember what her name was. I think her first name was Bobo or something. All I remember is that it's a strange name." the woman smiled apologetically.

"That's okay ma'am. Thank you very much for your corroboration." Riki bowed and watched the woman walk away.

"Matsuoka Gou…I need to find her and get information." Riki muttered under her breath and rushed to the white van.

Later That Night…

'I should call her. I need to apologize to Bo. She had many points and I was just being…' Gou thought as she stares at her phone, pondering to call Bo or not. Without thinking she dials the number and waited for her to answer.

"Gou?" Bo answers the phone.

"Bo! I'm so happy you picked up your phone!" Gou cheered. "I wanted to apologize about what happened in the changing room. I was freaking out and scared out of my mind!" Gou goes on and on about what she did wrong.

"Gou its fine, I should have been nicer." Bo cuts her off.

"No I'm at fault!" Gou urges went back and forth until they stopped. They both started to laugh.

"So…did you see Rei's and Nagisa's matching swimsuits?" Bo asked.

"I saw it! I ship it so hard!" Gou squeals. Suddenly there were crashes in the kitchen. "I got to go, bye." She quickly hangs up and heads for the kitchen.

She peaks in the doorway into the dark kitchen. She hits the light switch while preparing herself. As she looks around the lighted room, there were some canned food on the floor and a broken cookie jar. The room started to get colder.

"Is anyone there?" she asked, looking around the room. The lights start to flicker rapidly. She ran up the stairs into her bedroom and hid under the covers.

At Prefectural…

"GO SAMEZUKA!" the Samezuka swim team cheered on the other side of the pool.

"Geez, they are already getting their game on. It's too early in the morning." Bo complained as she looked around the large pool.

"Don't be such a downer Bo, get excited!" said Gou. "GO IWATOBI!" she cheered.

"You guys are already cheering?" said Ama-chan.

"It's never too early to get pumped up!" Gou exclaimed.

"That reminds me of a quote." The teacher said and cleared her throat to tell the quote but she was interrupted by the bell, alarming everyone that the competition was about to start.

….

"SWIM, SWIM, SWIM, SWIM MAKOTO!" the three girls chanted for each of their members so far.

"SWIM FASTER MAKOT OR ELSE YOU AIN'T GETTING ANY FROM GOU!" BO shouted on the top of her lungs.

"What the hell!?" Gou hits her in the shoulder. Bo grabs her face and forces to look at the pool. Makoto was swimming faster than ever before.

"Oh God…" Gou whined in embarrassment and covers her face. Suddenly, they both felt a dark and disturbing aura. Then Bo shivered abruptly.

"Are you okay?" Gou whispered to her.

"My vibes went off. Did you feel that aura?" Bo whispers back. Gou nods and looks around the area. Her eyes landed on a tall man on the other side of the pool in a dark hoodie.

"There." She motions her head. Bo follows it and she stiffens up. They both didn't look away from him and stopped paying attention to the race.

After Perfectuals…

"Good job everyone!" Ama-chan praised the boys as they left the changing room.

"Where are the girls?" Rei asked, noticing that Gou and Bo weren't with her.

"They said they had urgent matters to attend to." Ama-chan answered.

"I wonder what it is that was important enough not to come and congratulate us." Nagisa pouted.

Up in the Hills…

"Can't believe we are following someone this far up in the woods up in the hills." Gou complained, dragging her feet along the dirt path.

"We have to Gou. There's something about that guy that strikes me as a very dangerous person. He might be the person we have been wondering about." Bo reminded Gou as they followed the man to a large clearing.

"He's gone!" Gou said and jogs to the centre of the clearing.

"Where did her go?" Bo follows her. Then fire bursts around them again. Strange howls and growls were coming all around them. The fire went out and revealed strange looking black red-eyed dogs.

There was one dog with six legs. Another was the size of a tiger. The third one had two heads and another dog had three heads. The last one was mist like as if it wasn't there.

"Welcome little guppies!" a man's voice echoed throughout the clearing. Then flames burst in front of them and slowly became the shape of a man. He had long black hair, pale skin wearing leather clothes, combat boots and he was covered in spikes and chains.

"The man in chains…" Bo said under her breathe.

"I am the demon Hex!" he introduced himself as he did a little tango motion with his arms. He starts to snicker and points at them. "Sick'em boys!" he calls out and the dogs ran full-speed at the girls.

….

"I got them Riki-san!" Hiroku waves papers as he runs to the white van.

"You did!" Riki smiled. He hands them to her and she quickly reads them.

"Matsuoka Gou, 17, a high school student..." she flips through the papers. Then she stops on one page with a strange look on her face. "Watanabe Boboa?"

"That's the only one in the area with that name the old woman described to us." Hiroku explained. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, nothing let's go find them. We need to have a chat." She said, quickly changing her expression and starts the van.

….

The man slowly enters a cave on a cliff near the port. He hesitantly walks up to a rock that looked like a lounge chair and was covered in moss. Lying on the rock was a beautiful woman with green hair wearing a small short dress covered in seaweed, kelp, and some seashells. She opens her light green eyes and motions the man to come closer.

"Where have you been mister?" she said in a soft, harmonic voice. "You know you shouldn't wander around."

"I'm sorry…" he apologizes and gets on his knees.

"I brought you out of the ocean. I can put you back and became that lost soul again." She threatens him.

"I'm sorry…" he apologizes again.

"There's one way for me to accept your apology." She said and grabs his collar. She pulls him up gentle to her beautiful face. She kisses him softly. The man wraps her in his arms and pushes her down onto the rock.