Mysterious Roar

"Wh-wh-wh-what was that?" Kirihara wheezed through pants.

"How should I know?" Niou coughed out, leaning against a charred black tree trunk.

"Ya-yanagi-senpai?"

"Hm…" the data master mused. Unlike Kirihara, Niou, Yagyuu and Marui, the data master, along with Yukimura, Sanada, and Jackal, were not even the slightest bit tired. Not a single pant emerged from their mouths. "Interesting…it seems that different types of food can be harmful to different species."

"I told you that there were some food that birds can eat and humans can't," Sanada grumbled, tugging on his cap.

"Sanada, calm down," Yukimura said, smiling widely. "It's fine isn't it? We didn't collapse or anything."

"I'm on the verge of collapsing though," Marui spluttered. Niou reached forwards and lightly shoved the red head's foot, causing the self-proclaimed genius to fall down gracefully like a ballerina into a heap on the mud.

Niou chuckled like a mad man and said, "You're not on the verge anymore."

Marui lifted up his head, and Yukimura laughed into his sleeve at the sight of Marui's face fully covered with mud. "I'm going to kill you one day Niou, I swear on my life, I will."

"Go ahead and try then." Niou's eyes twinkled in amusement. "Puri."

"Jackal, kill him for me now."

The Brazilian lifted up his hand and pointed his index finger at himself. "Me?"

Marui nodded and slammed his face back down in the mud.

"Oi, Marui?" Jackal frantically shook Marui and rolled him over on his back, so that he wasn't suffocating himself by lying facedown in the mud.

"Buchou, we're not going to be like that gigantic bird are we?" Kirihara asked, having already regained his breath.

Yukimura laughed and shook his head. "Of course not Akaya. If we were, we would have already died a few minutes ago."

"That doesn't reassure me at all buchou."

"We'll be fine, Akaya-kun." Yagyuu placed a hand on the second year's shoulder. He then adjusted his glasses on his face before adding, "I think."

"Yagyuu-senpai! Don't say 'I think' at the end if you're trying to reassure someone!"

"There is a 14% chance that we would end up showing signs of any deadly diseases." Yanagi appeared right in front of the younger boy, and Yagyuu stepped away.

Kirihara scrunched his face up and used his fingers to calculate. "100% take away 14% is…86%?" he muttered. "So…there's an 86% chance that we'll be fine?"

"That's correct." Yanagi nodded.

"86% is more than 50%..." whispered Kirihara when Yanagi turned away.

"The first one who would show any signs, if we even do, would most likely be Marui," Yanagi said.

By then, with the help of Jackal, the mud on the red head was cleaned off and Marui was sparkling clean, like commercials when they advertised a new cleaning product and the tiles sparkled.

"Woah, bright!"

Marui beamed and made a peace sign with his right hand. "Dou, tensai teki?"

"It was all my hard work though," Jackal muttered.

"Why Marui-senpai?" Kirihara asked.

"That's because fatty ate the most, obviously," Niou drawled, as he rotated his head in a clockwise direction.

Kirihara formed an 'o' shape with his mouth and nodded. "So if Marui-senpai starts hacking up blood or something, we know that we'll be dead then?"

"HEY! Why would I be coughing up blood?"

"That seems to be the case." Yukimura nodded. "That is, if Marui doesn't eat anything else before that happens."

Kirihara made a horrified expression and said, "That's it. I'm not eating anything else. I'm going to starve till we get out like Niou-senpai suggested."

Yukimura smiled and shook his head. "You know that that's not possible Akaya."

"Hey! Is anyone going to comment on the fact that you guys predicted that I would be hacking up blood?" The poor red head was still yelling in the background, while being ignored by his peers. Jackal shook his head and eventually told Marui to hush.

"By the way, where are we now?" Yagyuu asked, spinning around in a circle.

"Well…" Niou glanced around, before pointing in a random direction. "We came from that way…"

"Really?" Jackal raised an eyebrow. "I thought that we came from that way." He pointed to a different direction.

"Eh?" Yukimura voiced his confusion. "I was pretty sure that we came from over there." He, as well, pointed to a completely different direction.

Sanada sighed and shook his head. Why couldn't he just be back at home in peace and quiet? Even better, he could be playing tennis. Wait. Tennis was the reason why they were even in the forest in the first place!

"Senpaiiiii!" Kirihara cried out, falling down onto his knees.

"Don't be in despair Akaya-kun, we'll find a way out of here," Yagyuu said, "I think."

"Yagyuu-senpai! You said 'I think' at the end again!"

Niou walked up to the younger boy and looked down at him. "Don't bother about it so much. Yagyuu's always like that. It's like a safety net for him you know? In case what he said before that wasn't true."

"At least I don't lie like you Niou-kun." Yagyuu pushed his glasses up.

"Yeah yeah! Yagyuu is truthful, unlike you rascal!" Marui agreed wholeheartedly and glared at the trickster.

Niou looked from Yagyuu to Marui, and back from Marui to Yagyuu before a grin emerged on his face. "Puri."

"Somehow I think that he's mocking me," whispered Marui and he turned away from the trickster.

Meanwhile, Yanagi was squatting down and concentrating on the trail of slug-like creatures sliding across them. "Maybe we should head in that direction," he said, looking up at the direction that the slug-like creatures were heading to.

"Are you sure Renji?" Sanada asked.

"No, not at all."

Yukimura shrugged and commented, "Well, what are the chances? Let's just go. Who knows? We might get lucky."

Sanada tugged his cap down, covering his eyes and muttered under his breath, "I don't think Lady Luck is on our side right now."

"Hm? What was that Genichirou?" Yanagi asked, standing up.

"Nothing," the cap wearing boy grunted.

"Onwards!" Niou exclaimed, dashing past the 3 Demons of Rikkai. The rest followed with less enthusiasm and let out a soft chant. Luckily for them, it wasn't as narrow as the path where they trekked through before, and the regulars could walk in pairs.

"Why am I following Niou?" Yukimura wondered. "I'm the captain aren't I?"

Yanagi glanced at Yukimura from the corner of his eye before adding a few more interesting facts about his captain in his head.

The rest of the journey was quiet, besides the squishing sound of their footsteps in the mud. Too quiet for comfort, Yanagi would say.

.~.

Rumble.

The ground shook slightly and the Rikkai regulars immediately got into a defensive position.

Roar.

The loud roar rang out and they quickly looked up, only to see nothing but trees towering over them, blocking away the sun (if it was daytime and not night), and the sky.

"What was that?" Kirihara asked, when they moved their heads back to their original positions.

"I don't know," Niou said. "But why is it that the first thing people do is to look up when they hear a loud noise?"

"In Tenipuri, we have advanced technology to create vehicles like fighter planes and helicopters. Those create outrageously loud noises when they soar through the sky, therefore, whenever we hear loud noises, we tend to look up because our brains associate loud noises with those vehicles in the air," Yanagi explained.

"Oh…" the other seven regulars said in unison as they nodded their heads.

"Okay, but let's get back to the main topic. What was that?" Jackal asked. "Even though I'm not an expert like Yanagi, I'm 100% sure that that roar wasn't a fighter plane, normal passenger plane, or a helicopter."

"I have no idea," Yukimura said. "Although, I most certainly wouldn't want to encounter the source of that roar."

"Do you think that it's a dragon or something cool like that?" Marui asked, bouncing up and down, his eyes sparkling.

"Pfft. There are no such thing as dragons idiot," Niou scoffed.

"You can't be so certain about that Niou."

"Huh?" Niou looked at Yanagi.

"There are still many undiscovered species on Earth, so there is still a possibility of dragons around, but they are just not discovered yet."

"That's ridiculous," Sanada exclaimed. "Dragons are only a figment of humans' imaginations."

"Sanada, you're the type that only believe in things when they see it with their own eyes aren't you?" Yukimura said.

"Well of course, they are only real if I see them for myself."

"I see…"

"Are you implying something Yukimura?" Sanada narrowed his eyes.

"No, nothing."

"So Yanagi, are there or are there not any dragons around?" Marui was currently bombarding the data master with questions about the existence of dragons.

"There is just a probability, it is not certain whether there are any."

"But there's a chance right? So there probably is isn't there?"

"Well-"

"There is aren't there?" Marui said, interrupting the data master. Marui jumped onto Yanagi's back and continued to ramble into the data master's ear. Jackal sighed and peeled the red head off Yanagi.

"You're even more immature than Akaya," Jackal reprimanded Marui.

"I can't believe that he's the oldest." Niou rolled his eyes and placed his hands behind his head. "He's the shortest, and the stupidest. Akaya is already stupid enough."

"I am not stupid! I'm a genius dammit, a GENIUS!"

Yagyuu turned away from Niou before saying, "That wasn't very nice of you Niou-kun."

"Niou's never nice dammit!" Marui yelled, swinging at fist at the trickster. Niou dodged skilfully and Marui groaned, while Jackal pulled him away.

Kirihara walked up to the four and asked Yagyuu, "Did Niou-senpai just call me stupid?"

Yagyuu glanced at Niou and back at Kirihara before nodding stiffly. "But Akaya-kun, I'm sure Niou-kun didn't mean that."

However, his words fell on deaf ears as the younger boy charged at Niou. "I am not stupid senpai!"

"Oh yeah?" Niou taunted as he avoided Kirihara. Marui squirmed in Jackal's arms. "Who's the one who got a 0 on his English exam?"

"That was a long time ago!"

"It was only last month Akaya," Niou stated. "Fine, but if you want a more recent example…who was the one who took ages to calculate 100% take away 14%?"

Kirihara stopped trying to attack Niou and felt his cheeks get hot. "I got it right though!"

"Enough!" Sanada boomed, his arms folded across his chest as he glared at the trickster.

Yukimura leaned towards Yanagi and whispered, "Did Akaya learn how to control his anger? Usually he would have already been in bloodshot mode or even devil mode by now."

Yanagi didn't reply. Yukimura frowned but made no comment.

"Are we just going straight ahead?" Niou asked Yanagi.

Yanagi glanced around before saying, "Hm…it seems so."

"How about we take a break for now?" Jackal asked, still restraining a struggling Marui. "I don't think this one can walk straight without somehow attempting to punch Niou in the face."

"Don't treat me like a kid Jackal!"

Yukimura observed his doubles team before nodding. "We can take a short break then." Scraping the mud with his shoe, he looked back up at Jackal before adding, "Don't let go of Marui though."

Jackal looked like he was going to protest but changed his mind when Marui tried to kick Niou when the trickster came closer.

"You can't get me~" Niou taunted, wriggling his fingers at Marui, who narrowed his eyes and frowned.

"Just wait, just you wait Niou."

"Oh~" Niou placed his hands on his chest. "I'm sooo scared!"

Yagyuu pulled Niou away from Jackal and Marui before nagging, "Niou-kun. Leave Marui-kun alone."

"Oh come on Yagyuu." Niou sighed. "It's fun."

Yagyuu looked over Niou's shoulder at Marui and said, "I don't think Marui-kun finds it fun."

"So?" Niou raised an eyebrow. "I do, and that's all that matters."

Yagyuu placed his palm on his forehead and shook his head. "Niou-kun…"

The trickster rolled his eyes and made his way back to Marui and Jackal.

Rumble. Rumble.

Kirihara looked up and said, "Is it just me, or is the ground shaking again?"

"It's not just you," Sanada replied, as he eyed his surroundings.

Niou's eyes widened and he shrieked, "Shit guys RUN!" Then, he took off.

"WHAT? WHY?" Marui screamed at Niou as he struggled free when the Brazilian relaxed his grip.

"BOULDER!" Niou yelled over his shoulder.

The other regulars looked at the opposite direction from which Niou was running towards and saw a large boulder rolling towards them.

"AHHHHH!" they all screamed, and took off after Niou.

.~.

"Is everyone alright?" Sanada asked, leaning against a tree trunk. He heard panting around him but no one replied. Pushing off the tree trunk, Sanada moved towards the pants and muttered, "What?"

A/N: Dragons are cool. I want to see one. Let's just hope that it won't kill me.