Disclaimer: It's pretty much obvious that I DO NOT own Prince of Tennis or Zero no Tsukaima, because if I did, I would be continuing both of the two series instead of making this fic…
Keith Kurogane – my one and only review, thanks! How I wish there were more… Heck, I'll even accept flames with no retort!
Read & Review: I removed the threat… You don't even have to log in! Though I swore to myself that I will not become dependent on reviews, at least 5 per chapter will do, or else I won't continue this story. I don't even care if you review five times!
Chapter 2: Futari no koi no HISTORY (The history of our love)
The sun was blazing hot again today… it was the middle of summer. A lot of people were out and around, cooling themselves with iced drinks and popsicles, lounging around in the shade, or near the fountains. It was just another ordinary day…
The surrounding buildings were getting blurry. They whisked past him as he ran through the city. His sleeveless black shirt and white shorts were already soaked in his sweat. So was the green bandanna holding his hair from his face, and yet, he completely ignored that fact as he continued to run. He was breathing heavily, and hissing occasionally to calm himself down as he ran, with his tennis bag slung at his back.
"Just one more lap around the city, then I'll go to practice…" he thought to himself. He was supposed to go to Seishun Gakuen to practice with the other Seigaku Regulars, but running a dozen laps around the city every morning has always been a routine since he asked his senpai, Inui, to make a training regime for him. When Inui suggested that he run 4-5 laps around the city every day, he decided to triple that amount of training, as well as double the number of running sessions per day. As such, after practice, he was planning on doing more running.
He was slightly distracted from his intense focus by an eerie light green glow from the ground, just a dozen or so yards away in front of him. He slowed down as he approached the glow, and found out that the light was coming from an open manhole near the construction site. He peered down the manhole with his snake-like eyes with just a tiny bit of curiosity, and then looked away as if it was only mildly interesting and wasn't worth paying much attention to.
The wind had picked up a bit. He was starting to walk away to continue his running, but…
"LOOK OUT!!!" a sharp scream cut through the air from behind him. Before he could turn around, a searing pain exploded simultaneously from his back and the back of his head. He heard a ripping sound, just before he slammed face first into the concrete. Then, everything went black.
He opened his eyes, and then immediately grimaced in pain. The concrete was the first thing he saw, and then he realized that he was pinned to it. It had finally registered in his brain that something had hit him, hard. He rolled to the side a bit, so that he could be lying down, and then he saw what had hit him.
A thin young man about his age was also lying face down on the concrete. Near his legs was an extremely dented bicycle, which he assumed was so because of the accident. The young man's slick, red hair looked a little bit familiar. Before long he realized to whom it belonged to.
"YOU! KAMIO!" he glared at the person. The person came to and pushed himself up from the concrete. He also grimaced in pain, but his pained expression was immediately replaced with a look of terror as he realized who exactly he had knocked down.
"K… K… Kaidoh?!" the person stuttered in fear, while he was being glared upon by the ill-tempered young man.
"YOU…" The furious man continued to glare. He stood up and grabbed the person's collar with both hands. He raised the person, who was all the while shaking in horror, onto a standing position. "DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE KAORU KAIDOH!!!"
At this, the person's fear got the better of him, and his knees gave way. Both of them teetered off balance and then felt a sudden loss of ground. They were falling into nothingness, surrounded by light green light, and then, darkness.
"ANSWER MY GUIDANCE!" lingered in the void…
And yet, somehow, it was way too short for his liking…
"It seems you have now completed your contract with your servant" the teacher told the strawberry-silk haired girl, after the kiss was over.
"WHAT THE FRIGGIN' HELL WAS THAT FOR?!" the commoner screamed at the two. He had finally woken up from the shock of the kiss. But as soon as he finished the question, his body began to let off steam, literally, and his flesh started to feel like it was burning. He grimaced in pain.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!" he shouted at the girl.
"It'll end soon. It's just etching the familiar rune" the young lady replied to the shouting commoner.
Then, he screamed in pain and clutched his hand. Something was being magically seared onto the back of his hand. The teacher stared at it with a slightly concerned look, whilst the young lady was indifferently watching the event unfold.
And then, he blacked out.
A tall, bespectacled, black-haired, young man was standing near the edge of a manhole. His green jogging pants were dusty and muddy, because he had been running as fast as he could to this area. He was clutching a small piece of green cloth that struck his glasses half an hour ago. He had recognized it as a part of his kouhai's bandana. From the consistency of the dirt on it, he figured that it originated from this construction site. What he saw there was not a great sight.
An extremely dented bicycle was lying like a scrap heap near the manhole. There were clear footprints on the grey layer of dust on the concrete, as well as two blurred human outlines on it. The footprints were made by Puma's, Kaidoh's favorite brand of running shoes, and the outline on the ground had the same build and height as Kaidoh. A pair of footprints seemed to stop half into the manhole, backwards.
As he looked down into the darkness of the manhole, he started to calculate the possibility that his kouhai, Kaidoh, had fallen into it…
When the commoner came to, he was lying on a pile of straw on the floor. He sat up and saw that the room was a Victorian-style bedroom. It was already dark and the room was illuminated by a single burner on a wooden table.
"Where am I? Lost?" he wondered, looking around curiously. He was about to stand up when he heard a girl's voice. He turned his head to look to his right and saw the young lady from before.
"So you've finally awakened…" said the young lady. "After much discontent, I have given up and have decided to take you as my familiar. Be grateful." She walked to a large, wooden dresser discontentedly.
"WHERE IS THIS PLACE YOU HAVE ABDUCTED ME TO?! RETURN ME HOME OR ELSE...!" he shouted angrily at the girl, obviously not understanding a single word that she said. But before he could shout any further, he was silenced by what the girl was doing.
She opened the dresser and hung her black cape inside, then closed the dresser door. She unbuttoned her short, black skirt and let it drop to the floor at her feet. She started unbuttoning her long-sleeved, white button-up shirt, and one by one, she undid the buttons, revealing a pink, translucent, night-dress. She then tossed her discarded clothing in the commoner's face.
"Go wash those. Even though there's a language barrier and you don't understand my words, as a servant, you should understand at least this much" she said.
When he removed the clothing from his face, he blushed for a moment but then quickly shook it off. He looked at the scantily-clad girl straight in the eyes with his own snake-like eyes and stood up. He approached the girl and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. Their faces were inches away, hers, a slightly surprised look, and his… total fury.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU PLAN TO DO WITH THIS SEDUCTION?!" he shouted at directly at her face.
"It's so annoying!" the girl screamed in exasperation, covering her ears. "All it does is shout, shout, shout! It's like a viper, ready to crush anything…" but then she suddenly remembered something.
"There's that mute spell that I learned last year." She got her wand from the table and raised it above her head. "I think it was something like… Immediately hold your silence and answer my demand!" pointing it at the ranting commoner, and then…
PZHOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!
A huge explosion occurred again, and it filled the room with brown smoke and strong wind. The young lady's beautiful strawberry-silk hair waved backwards as the wind blew, but it landed just as beautifully as it would have stayed had there been no wind.
The commoner's body was smoldering. He was charred and covered in soot, and the girl's garments were burnt to cinders. But amazingly, he was alive.
"This is so strange…" she said.
"What the hell…" he muttered, coughing up ashes.
The girl let out a tiny yelp of surprise.
The commoner stood up and his muscles tensed. His fists were closed and his arms were shaking in anger. He let out a small hiss…
Fshuuuuu…
"Is… that… THE BEST YOU CAN DO?!!!! DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE KAORU KAIDOH!!!!"
He had snapped. He was still grasping the girl by the shoulders. He raised her up a foot off the ground and nearly threw her back when…
"I understand… I understand!" she said, surprised by the commoner's newfound ability to talk with sense.
"Ah?" he asked, calming down from his rage in an instant. "What the… you can speak Japanese?"
"What's the meaning of this? It was a spell of silence" she wondered aloud, and then sighed in exasperation. "So I screwed up again…"
"Kaoru Kaidoh? Is that your name?" she asked the commoner.
"Yes" he replied. "Why am I here?" he asked her.
"Isn't it obvious? You were summoned by me…" she explained, "as a familiar."
"Familiar?!" he asked, shocked, and only then did he notice the strange mark on his hand.
"This bike looks familiar…" the spiky-haired junior said, "I think I've used it before."
He was talking to the seven people with him. Though they were supposed to be practicing tennis at the Seishun Gakuen tennis courts, they all cut the session short and were now at the construction site, at the urgent call by one of them to all come. They were currently investigating the area, tennis bags still slung at their backs.
"Momo-senpai, it's Kamio's bike. You stole it once and then broke it, remember? On the day I bought my grip tape…" the youngest of them all said, recalling the event.
"Aahh, did I Echizen-kun?" the junior asked nervously, knowing fully now that he indeed did so.
"Saa, Inui" asked a brown haired senior. "You think that Kaidoh could be in trouble?" he faced his tall, bespectacled friend, though how he did it was a mystery, with his perpetually closed eyes.
'Yes Fuji. Probability of Kaidoh being in trouble in this situation, 92.8" he replied. He pushed his glasses up a bit and then stared at the manhole. He thought he saw a glint of green light from the darkness. "Did any of you see that?"
All of them nodded in unison. They each thought silently for a few moments. Then finally someone broke the silence.
"Eeh? Kaidoh is down there? Should we go after him then?" another brown haired senior asked hesitantly. He looked mildly nervous at the thought, but the anxiety was quickly replaced when…
"Saa, here's your racket, Taka-san" said Fuji, holding out to him a yellow racket. As soon he took it from Fuji, he completely changed.
"Moeruze, BUUUUURRRNING!" Taka shouted at the top of his lungs. He recklessly tried to run and jump into the manhole, but stopped immediately when a deep voice started.
"Taka, calm down. Let's not get careless" a golden-haired young man commanded. Everyone turned around as the man walked towards the manhole, tennis ball at hand.
"Tezuka-buchou, what are…?" Momo, short for Momoshiro, started to ask, but Tezuka showed no inclination to reply.
"He is testing how far the drop is since there isn't any ladder to climb down with…" a short haired senior answered Momo's unfinished question.
"Nya, Oishi? Is he really?" the only red haired person in the group asked, pulling Oishi into a crushing hug, purring innocently like a cat all the while
"Eiji…" Oishi pleaded, and then his attention turned back to Tezuka, who was already holding the ball directly above the manhole.
He dropped the ball into the darkness of the manhole, and something incredible happened… the manhole started glowing light-green. The light lingered for a few seconds, and then it was gone again. At this point, Taka couldn't restrain himself anymore, and he excitedly jumped in…
"Come on, baby!" he shouted as he fell.
The rest of the team looked at each other for a while, expecting a cry of pain, but instead, the same thing happened, the green light appeared for a few seconds, and then both the light and Taka were gone.
They all stared in amazement and silence. They were waiting for another one of them to jump in next. They all stood still for a very long time before somebody moved in.
"Saa… see you on the other side!" Fuji said, and he promptly jumped after Taka.
The rest of them sighed as the green light enveloped Fuji for a moment and then faded out. One by one, the rest of them lined up to jump down.
Eiji scrambled against the rest to get to the first spot, with Oishi trying to restrain him.
"Nya, wait for me Fuji-ko!!!" he shouted, dibing into the manhole.
"Eiji!" Oishi got drawn into the hole as well. The green light flashed, and they were gone.
"Why do I have to go?" Echizen asked, not in the least bit interested to jump in. At that point, Momo pulled him into a headlock-slash-hug, for the second time that day.
"What, are you scared? Aren't you the great Ryoma Echizen?" he taunted him, a wide grin on his face. Just as Echizen was about to make a sarcastic remark, Momo suddenly jumped in, dragging Echizen with him into the light.
Inui looked at them all go. He and Tezuka were the only ones left standing there.
Tezuka looked at him and then asked "Are you going?"
"Of course, it's good data…" he replied.
Both of them stepped down nonchalantly, down into the light.
And then, the void consumed them all…
"This is Tristein Kingdom within Halkeginia Continent, and you are a student from that school…" Kaidoh repeated what the girl just explained, pointing at her.
The girl was taken aback, and she had an annoyed expression on her face.
"I will not allow a familiar to address me like that. I am Louise, Louise de la Valiel" she declared proudly.
"And I'm the familiar that you summoned? Those things that accompany sorcerers, the same as those from movies and manga…" he stated to himself quietly, staring at the wooden floor all the while.
Louise let out a sad sigh. "Why is my familiar a commoner? Why not a dragon or a griffon? I wanted something cooler!" she complained loudly, her eyes closed and teeth gritted. It looked like this was her way to calm herself down.
When she calmed down, she opened her eyes.
"Kaoru Kaidoh?" she asked in surprise, because not even his outline was in her midst.
Her familiar had disappeared, leaving the wooden door of her dormitory room creaking, slightly open.
"He ran away? My familiar? You're kidding, right?!"
Everything is not as straightforward as it seems, again... so don't jump to too many conclusions...
Awww, come on. reviewing doesn't take that long! Just five review...