Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own PoT. I'm flattered that you thought I did ^^

Ch. 4

"Hey R… Saicho-kun," Sakuno greeted, sounding as perky as ever. Ryoma just glanced up from his book, and back down… and back up again. "Damn," he cursed. Well, at least he had bodyguards to take care of things this time. He let his eyes wander, under the guise of looking at the beautiful park around him.

He sought out Tezuka, who was pretending to talk amicably with Fuji as they strolled down the path. Their eyes met, and Tezuka seemed to understand immediately- the guarded expression on Ryoma's face was all he needed to see. Ryoma surreptitiously held up 8 fingers, and Tezuka nodded curtly in response. He tapped Fuji on the shoulder, whispering something into his ear, and Fuji scanned their surroundings with sharp eyes. The two nodded, and separated suddenly.

Shishido Ryo, who happened to be leaning against the shed nearby, let out a sigh. God, guard duty was so boring. He wished he could have been assigned some different job, but no, he just had to be following this little girl around…

WHAM! He never saw it coming. Within seconds, he was down, lying on the ground, with his arms being bound behind him. "Wha…" he just managed to get out before his assaulters flipped him over. He gasped as he recognized them. "You!" he snarled, struggling to get up.

Just as surprised, Fuji sat back, contemplating the situation. He would never have expected to see Shishido Ryo here, he thought. Tezuka seemed frozen. Could this possibly mean…

"Ryo-san!" the frantic voice caught their attention. Almost as one, Tezuka and Fuji turned, only to see a blur of silver as someone raced past them. "Ryo-san, are you ok? I saw you get taken down, and…" before the new intruder could untie Ryo, Fuji and Tezuka caught him and hauled him away. Ryo, seeing this, started to struggle. "You leave Chotaro alone!" he yelled, trying to come to his friend's aid. Fuji raised his eyebrows. "Oh, so it's Chotaro now, is it?" Ryo blushed a deep red, but didn't stop struggling.

And then, everyone else showed up. Atobe, Kabaji, Akutagawa, Oshitari, Mukahi, and Hiyoshi surrounded Fuji and Tezuka in a loose ring. Smirking, Atobe faced Tezuka. "So, we meet again, Tezuka," he purred, looking very self-satisfied.

"Oy! Is everything all right, nyah?" Never in his life had Tezuka been so grateful to hear Eiji's incessant voice calling out. The entire group had arrived, pushing their way into the circle and joining their leader. "Oh, Tezuka, isn't that…" Oishi started, pointing at Ryo on the ground.

"Ok, can someone explain what the hell is going on?" Immediately, everyone fell silent, turning to stare at Ryoma. He was looking annoyed- what should have been a calm day at the park had degenerated into this riot, and he hated it when his quiet time was disturbed. Eyes narrowed, he looked at each and every face there. "Tezuka," he snapped. "Who are these people? You seem to know them, don't you? Are they after me or not?"

Mukahi started to protest. "No, we're not after you, we're trying to follow that girl over there-" Oshitari clamped a hand over the redhead's mouth, but too late. Ryoma's eyes only narrowed further. "So you're after Sakuno then? Tezuka," he said warningly, indicating that an explanation was definitely needed.

Clearing his throat, Tezuka stepped forwards. "Echizen-sama," he said respectfully, "this is another set of bodyguards that is under the employment of your father. When we were young, we were rivaling groups. The bodyguards protecting you is the Seishun unit, and these people are the Hyotei unit. There are more units, but they are protecting other people in the family. We didn't recognize them right away, but they are of no harm to you." No matter how much rivalry there was between Tezuka and Atobe, he knew that Atobe would never defect to their enemies.

"So they're trying to protect Sakuno then? Baka oyajii," Ryoma muttered, feeling a headache coming on. 8 bodyguards was more than enough. Now he had to deal with 16? And they were enemies? This was going to be a fun year, he thought sarcastically.

Already, a fight had broken out between Mukahi and Kikumaru. As soon as they'd set eyes on each other, they'd gone off and started fighting. "Hey, Kikumaru, you've gotten fat!" jeered Mukahi, gracefully bending over backwards to avoid the kick aimed at his head. "And slow!" he added, flipping high over Kikumaru's head. He didn't get a chance to say anything else, as Kikumaru took the opportunity to jump upwards, flipping midair and kicking Mukahi hard.

Ryoma looked away only to see Fuji's smile looking a bit forced. Jirou was bouncing around him, asking questions delightedly. "Oh, and what about that other counter? You're so good at using people's power against them, can you tell me how?"

Tearing his eyes away from the hyper orange-haired guy, Ryoma searched for any pocket of peace, settling on Oshitari and Momo, who were actually talking civilly. In fact, they were complementing each other and exchanging tips. Although one might think that they weren't quite a likely pair, they actually had quite a bit in common, it seemed. Ryoma was relieved, thinking that the relations between the two groups weren't quite as bad as he'd thought.

But one look at the leaders was enough to convince him otherwise. Tezuka Kunimitsu and Atobe Keigo. Ryoma got chills just watching the two of them glare at each other. He wondered just how he was going to last during this year, if he had to deal with two rivaling groups like this.

Well, he thought bitterly, at least he was going to be physically safe, as would Sakuno. But he thought privately that by the end of the year, he might not be mentally sound anymore.

Being an heir was really a pain sometimes.

***

A/N: Ok, that's it. I'm done with this. I have no idea how to continue from here! I won't continue this story any further, but if anyone wants to adopt this story, feel free to do so (just drop me a line first). And I know this was a crap ending, but I had no idea how to finish it. Really.

Well, review anyways. Bad, good, terrible, worse, whatever, just tell me! If you think I shouldn't have tried to continue, tell me that too! So review! Please!