Disclaimer: Eh, same disclaimer. I don't think any one who makes Prince of Tennis or Zero no Tsukaima fanfics owns any of the two series.
Euqnip - my second reviewer. Thanks, for teaching me parts of the Canon and Fur Elise. You should become a piano teacher.
I've contracted a highly contagious disease that is spreading from the authors using this website. It's called SLORS, the Severe Lack of Reviews Syndrome. And how do you get this syndrome? It has to do with getting only 2 reviews after every fifty or so hits on your story.
If you don't want to contract this disease, take preventive action. Start by giving me a review, and I'll give you an immunity booster in the form of my review. Godspeed!
Chapter 3: Kono unmei ni mahou kaketa (As if casting a spell over this fate)
"AAAAAHHHH!!!!" Kaidoh yelled as loud as he could as he ran out of the room and into the hallway. He had always been creeped out by supernatural objects even though he hates to admit it, and he probably won't ever do so. But that strawberry-silk haired girl said she was a sorcerer and her intentions for him were clear enough. She was planning on making him her servant.
"I AM NOT STAYING HERE!! NO FREAKIN' WAY IN HELL!!!" he continued his terrified rant as he jumped seven or eight steps at a time down a spiral staircase.
In the hallway on the floor below, a blonde boy wearing a black cape was charming a young lady with long brown hair that matched her long brown cape. The boy was Guiche, the student talking with the girl Montmorency earlier that day.
"I'm really good at making soufflé" the young lady said.
"I would love to try that out" Guiche replied sweetly.
"Really?!" she asked in excitement.
"Of course, Katie. I cannot tell lies in front of your eyes" he replied romantically. At this point it was obvious that Guiche was an expert at charming the ladies. The girl was caught in his words. All she could do was mutter…
"Guiche-sama…" she said in total admiration.
"There cannot exist any deceitfulness to my feelings towards you…" he said, enhancing the moment… before it was completely ruined.
A loud crash at the far end of the hallway broke the solemn atmosphere. Kaidoh had lost his footing and had tumbled into the hallway, interrupting the two's romantic endeavor. The long, painful roll down the stairs and the feel of the rock-hard granite floor on his face, however, did not deter him in the least. He recovered instantly, and launched himself running again, heading straight for the two, not even breathing heavily from the run, or the fall.
He was still far off when Guiche spotted the interruption.
"It's the commoner that Louise summoned" he said, surprised.
"Oh, the one from today's ceremony. It's big news even among the First Years" the girl called Katie added.
"He suddenly fell unconscious and was unable to move so it was a big pain for us" he stated blandly and loudly, enough so that even the commoner should here what he was saying.
He was nearing them when Guiche called out to him.
"Do you not have gratitude towards a noble that troubled his hands for you?" he asked sardonically.
"MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, YOU IRRITATING MORON!!!" Kaidoh ran past them in a blaze of total fury, without so much as a glance of gratitude to Guiche. On the contrary, he nearly knocked both of them out of the way in his hurry to find the exit to this medieval castle of a dormitory.
Guiche considered striking the rude commoner down, but then decided against it.
"What lack of etiquette…" he sighed to Katie.
Just then, another set of footsteps caught their attention as someone else approached. Then, Louise came into view, breathless from running.
"Louise. Right now your familiar…" he started to tell her, when she suddenly cut him off.
"Catch it for me. It ran away" she said breathlessly.
"The familiar you contracted with? Amazingly, being your familiar, I guess it isn't surprising it will defy common sense…" he said astounded.
"Stop being in awe and help me catch it!" she screamed at him.
Down another set of stairs, straight this time, he went, now jumping down freely, throwing all caution to the wind as he raced down, and turning right immediately after he spotted the exit from the bottom of the staircase. He passed two other students sitting closely beside each other at the base of the indoor fountain. The male had brown hair and was wearing a purple cape, and the female had red hair and was wearing a black cape. She was the same well-endowed girl who teased Louise earlier.
"Isn't that Louise the Zero's…" the male started.
"Yes, it's the commoner familiar" she completed his sentence.
And speak of the devil herself, Louise emerged from the stairway.
"It's over there!" she said, pointing to the running figure.
"Hey, what are you guys doing?" the redhead called out to Guiche.
"Oh Kirche, you have to listen to this…" he started to reply, when Louise interrupted him again.
"Who cares?! It's gonna get away!" she said pointedly.
Kaidoh jumped the last eight steps and started running through the dark lawn. It was nighttime and the grass were a muddled green in the moonlight, but he didn't care.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN MAGIC?! GET ME OUT OF THIS CRAZY…" he said as he closed his eyes. He concentrated and then willed himself to run at his fastest. He thought for a moment that it was working, for he felt his body getting lighter and his legs moving faster. But then he realized that something was terribly wrong. The wind on his face had disappeared and he no longer felt his weight on the ground. He had had enough of it when he felt himself moving sideways. He opened his eyes. He was levitating.
"I would like it if you give in already. This is the second time I've had to levitate you" a familiar voice came from behind him.
When he looked back, four students had gathered to watch him in the air. One was the young lady who introduced herself to him, Louise. The other was the irritating blonde that he passed earlier. The other two, the brown-haired male and the redhead, were complete strangers, though he might have also passed them while he was running.
Guiche was pointing his wand, which happened to be concealed in a rose, at the commoner, moving him from side to side in mid-air.
"A familiar that ran away from its master?! That's hilarious!" Kirche said, laughing histerically.
Louise looked at her with contempt, before turning her attention to her runaway familiar in the air with her deep, gazing, strawberry-silk colored eyes.
"IS THIS REAL?!" Kaidoh asked, completely scared out of his wits at the thought of these religious cult or fantasy maniacs below him. That was before he saw a sight that completely drowned out of him the only remaining strand of glorious and more importantly, sane, reluctance that he was holding on to.
"WHAT THE HELL?!!!!" he roared in temporary insanity, staring at the two moons, the smaller one pink, while the larger one blue.
The sky was dark and moonless, at least from where they saw it. They could feel damp grass at their backs, as one by one each of them awakened and sat up. Each of them felt sore muscles as they did so, as if they had all taken a long fall from the night sky. Ignoring the pain, they all sat in eerie silence as they devised their immediate surroundings.
They were in a clearing. Thick trees were barely distinguishable from the background, encircling them with a kind of wooden silencer that buffered away the animal sounds in the nighttime. This state of silent observation was disturbed when someone coughed. They all directed their attention to the direction of the sound.
"Are you guys alright?" the mild–mannered voice of Takashi Kawamura asked concernedly. He was with them again, kneeling and supporting himself.
"Saa, Taka-san. Yes, we are. Where's your racket?" replied Fuji, who was dusting off his shoulder.
"It broke… I'll need a new one…" Taka replied sadly.
While they were talking, the rest of the group had started to stand up and crack their sore joints. It was relatively tranquil (considering Momoshiro's loudmouth attitude, Echizen's endless sarcasm about anything his senpai was saying, Eiji's tantrum and Oishi's maternal instinct trying to calm all of them down.) Tezuka was stoically observing their strange, dark environment and Inui was observing the team, writing down calmly on one of his green notebooks even in the darkness.
Suddenly, that usual air of crazy club discord disappeared when a loud war cry broke the tranquility. Every single one of them turned their heads towards the trees, listening intently, grasping the only weapons available to them, their loaded tennis bags and for Taka, the splintered handle of his broken yellow racket. It was a tense moment, their ears straining for the slightest sound, and they soon heard it again.
"MOMOSHIRO!!! DAMN YOU!!!" the muffled but somehow familiar growl ringed through the air.
Momoshiro stepped back in surprise. Fortunately in fact, for a split-second after that, a dark, lanky figure had jumped from the trees and had struck the exact spot that he had been standing at only a moment before.
The figure had slick red hair and sharp eyes that glinted with his rage. He looked up at Momoshiro and made a run at him in full speed. Momoshiro tried to evade the barking mad person but the person was too fast, his movements were completely blurred, like a bullet, and Momoshiro was taken down.
Momoshiro's fiery spirit took over. And he engaged the person in a yelling-slash-fistfight.
"KAMIO! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" he screamed into the person's ear as he grabbed his collar.
"I KNEW THIS WAS ALL YOUR DOING! YOU'RE GONNA PAY FOR THIS!!!!" came the reply, complete with a return grab to Momoshiro''s collar.
The two continued to scramble and bicker with each other until they both felt themselves being lifted off the ground by the back of their collars. Taka had grabbed them with one hand each, showing the insane strength that he possessed. He separated the two for a while until both of them calmed down.
They cooled off a bit after a few minutes, and the temporary peaceful silence that had occurred in that period was first disturbed by Kamio as he spoke calmly now.
"How did you guys get here?" he asked them all of them except Momoshiro, whom he had taken to avoiding. "Did you fall through the manhole as well?"
They all looked at each other in wonder. So Kamio had fallen into the mysterious glowing manhole. Taka picked up Momoshiro and stood him up. He looked sulkily away from Kamio and then asked the simplest of all questions.
"Where are we?"
"I don't know…" Kamio replied to the rest, even though Momoshiro asked the question. "I was riding on my… BICYCLE (looking accusingly and viciously at Momoshiro)… and I found out that ITS BRAKES WERE BROKEN (looking at Momoshiro again), and I couldn't stop. I collided with Kaidoh and we sort of… both fell into the glowing manhole…"
He explained about the proceeding darkness, then a bright light, and about how he fell from the sky.
"I saw more things fall from the sky, I would never have guessed that those would be you guys" he finished.
Suddenly, after being silent all the while, Inui suddenly started to talk.
"So, you were with Kaidoh when you fell. Where is he now?" he questioned him.
"Ah, I almost forgot." he replied. "In the darkness, we heard a girl's voice in a weird language. Kaidoh was holding my collar when we fell, you see, and a great white light appeared in front of both of us, but it only sucked in Kaidoh, and I got separated from him. I don't know where he is now…"
"Nya, Kaidoh-kun is missing!" Eiji said cheerfully. He leaped up an incredible height, above the thick tall trees and spun completely around, before dropping down lightly on his feet. "Let's go look! SEIGAKUUUU!!! And Kamio-kun of Fudomine too… FIGHT-O!!!!!!"
Some of them shouted with Eiji, getting fired up for the search. Tezuka, Fuji, Inui, and Echizen remained quiet…
"Let's not get careless…" Tezuka said. Immediately, everybody else quieted down, and Inui was furiously scribbling data in the dark.
"Senpais!" Echizen said smugly. "Where are we supposed to go?"
Momoshiro, Taka, Oishi, and Kamio had their spirits dampened by the freshman, but in reply, Eiji had a huge grin plastered on his face.
"Ne, Ochibi. You're getting slow…" he teased Echizen, who lowered his cap in front of his eyes, annoyed. "I've already planned our route. When I jumped up, I looked around and I saw a walled medieval castle-like place, just outside this forest. We go… that way!" pointing dramatically to one side of the clearing. They would have to go through the forest.
"Amazing, Eiji. Your ability to clearly see fast-moving objects as if they were in slow motion is so awesome!" Oishi encouraged Eiji, who confidently gave a V sign as thanks.
Their murmurs resonated in the air as they slowly and uncertainly made their way through the thicket to try and find their missing companion, when another series of cries suddenly cut through the air, interrupting the start of their search.
First, there came a low yell. They turned around, surprised by the sudden sound, ears alert for the sound again. Ten minutes, which, to them, seemed like an eternity, of careful listening after, there came another one, this time a girl's scream. They didn't have to wait longer, for in the next few seconds, five other yells were heard.
"Kamio, were any other people here when you came?" Inui asked.
"N-no… besides you guys, I didn't see or here anyone else…" Kamio replied.
"Let's go investigate!" Momo shouted excitedly, grabbing Echizen in the third headlock-slash-hug of the day and dashing towards the clearing, dragging Echizen with him like a football.
"Wait, Momo! What about Kaidoh?!" Oishi yelled at him.
Not even bothering to slow down, Momoshiro replied loudly.
"Mamushi can take care of himself!!!"
With a sigh, they all turned and followed him back.
"Heh… Echizen won't be very pleasant today, I can tell…" Fuji said with closed eyes and a smirk on his face to Tezuka.
"Fuji, don't let your guard down…" he replied seriously.
"Where is Kamio-kun?" wondered the black-haired senior aloud. He was wearing a black sports jacket with "FUDOMINE" printed at its back in red, with his black tennis bag slung behind him. He was wondering about why the team's speed demon missed their scheduled practice earlier today. "It's not like him to forget summer practice. Have you seen him earlier Ann-chan?"
"Nope, I wonder what happened to him" his brown haired sister replied. She was wearing a long-sleeved blue tennis shirt and a white short skirt above black cycling shorts. She was carrying a pink and white tennis bag.
"Tachibana-Buchou! Tachibana, uh, Ann-san!" called out a tall, bald junior with a white bandana. He was running toward them from the school entrance. "Something's happened to Kamio-kun! Come with me!"
The captain of Fudomine Gakuen Tennis Club and his sister were shocked by the news. They ran with the junior as they sped downtown. The other members, also clad in the same black sports jacket, were standing around a wreckage of what looks like the remains of a bicycle, Kamio's bicycle.
"What happened? Where's Kamio? And Shinji?" Tachibana asked seriously. Two of his Fudomine regulars were missing and the rest were gathered around a manhole. "Ishida, Sakurai… where are they?" he addressed his kouhais, the ones with a white bandana and reddish brown hair respectively.
"We think Kamio might have fallen into the manhole, Tachibana-buchou" the bandana-clad junior replied. "Shinji was muttering about the risks of sewage fumes earlier… I don't know where he is now…"
"Actually…" the reddish-brown haired junior interrupted. "While, Ishida-kun was getting you, Ibu-kun suddenly stopped muttering and jumped into the manhole before we could stop him. It was weird though…" he added.
"Why? What was weird about that? Have you called for help yet?" rapidly asked the worried captain. He was getting a bit angry that they, his beloved friends, were not doing anything about the situation. "Uchimura, Mori…" he said as two of his kouhais went up to him.
This time the short junior student wearing a black cap answered. Beside him was a black haired junior looking dejectedly at the concrete.
"Well, Tachibana-buchou, you see…" he tried to reason with the captain, seeing his frustrated face. He looked to his doubles partner beside him for help, whispering "Mori… help me out…" but he in turn kept quiet. "The manhole glowed green when Shinji jumped in, so we… no, we didn't call anybody else, sorry…" he resigned himself, looking dejectedly at the concrete as well.
"We have to rescue them both!" Ann, who had been utterly quiet before, suddenly blurted out.
"What are we?" Tachibana Kippei asked suddenly.
The worry in all of the team members' faces was replaced with surprise by the sudden question. They looked up at their captain, who was dead serious again, like his usual tournament self.
"We are Fudomine!" shouted Ishida, and the rest followed his lead.
"WHAT ARE WE?!" this time, both Kippei and Ann asked loudly.
"FUDOMINE!!!!" all the rest replied.
"Well, see you later!" Ann suddenly jumped into the manhole. Exactly as Uchimura described it, the manhole flashed an eerie green light right after Ann jumped in.
Kippei followed directly after her, with the same result.
With a look of hesitation in each of their faces, they one by one jumped into the manhole.
More to come soon.