Chapter Two

One Month Later

It was a beautiful summer day. The sky was a perfect blue and had just the right number of clouds. Shion had come to the village to visit Satoshi, but Dr. Irie wouldn't let her. When she asked him why, he wouldn't answer. He wouldn't even let her into the sub-level of the clinic.

That wasn't the only change Shion had noticed at the clinic. She also saw a shipment of new supplies and equipment for the clinic. But the funding was supposed to stop this year. Before she could look into it, her sister, Mion, had dragged her to today's club event. Since Shion had promised Irie that she would keep Satoshi's location a secret, she couldn't tell her sister about it. It wasn't that she didn't want to be there, she just wanted to know what was going on. Fortunately, she had asked Kasai to look into it. He would find out what was going on, assuming he did as she asked.

Class was over for the day and Mion had gathered all the students outside. In all were 16 people there, including Shion. Everyone was wearing shorts because of the summer heat.

In the middle of the school yard, there was an outline of a large rectangle, made of tennis chalk. A few meters away from the half was point of the rectangle, two additional lines were made that stretched from one of the long sides to the other. Within the rectangle Scattered randomly around the school yard were several wooden crates of various sizes. While the largest crate was less then a meter tall, all of them were big enough to hide behind.

On the shorter sides of the rectangle were two posts, one at each side. The posts were slightly over a meter tall. Attached to each post was a small white flag. Each post was surrounded by a half circle of chalk with a radius of 2 meters. There were no crates within these circles.

All of the students were standing outside of the rectangle, facing one of the longer ends. Between them and the rectangle stood Mion.

"Alright everyone," she began. "Today we are going to be doing a new game, called Capture the Flag."

"Capture the flag?" asked Keiichi Maebara. Everyone else was just as confused as Keiichi. They had never heard of it before.

"It's like a western version of Botori," Mion explained to them. "though it does not need as many players and it does not any pulling or wrestling."

"We will play here," Mion said as she gestured with her right hand to indicate the rectangle. "Why don't we just play in the forest?" one of the younger students asked. "I thought of that," Mion began to explain. "But it would be difficult to run in there and I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"No, you just wanted an excuse to make me suffer." Keiichi commented. Rena, who was standing next to him, asked "What do you mean?"

"Mion had me come up here after class and unload those crates and put them out there, while she was reading Shōnen Jump."

"Well you did lose in our last club game," Mion noted. "And that was your punishment." "So that's why Mion asked you to stay after class yesterday." Rena said with a hint of relief in her voice. "Huh?" Keiichi asked, somewhat confused over Rena's answer. But before Rena could respond, Mion interrupted by whistling loudly. "Alright, people. Let's get back on topic here.

Mion pointed to the lines in the center of the playing field. "The lines here is the border between the two sides. When a person is in the other teams territory, that team can capture him/her by grabbing them. However, you cannot capture someone on there side or in the space between the two territories."

Mion continued to explain the rules of the game for a few more minutes. She then began to number the other students by either 1 or 2. When she was done, she had the ones go to her left, and the twos to her right. On team 1 were Mion, Rika, Satoko, and five of the other classmates. Everyone else was on team 2.

When she was done and the teams were set, Mion had them go to their territories. "Just a reminder," she called out to them. "For a team to win, you have to capture the enemy flag five times." Mion then jogged over to her team's territory. Once she was inside, she shouted "Begin!"

The score is Team 1: 0 Team 2: 0

The game had just begun. Neither side had made any hostile moves towards the other. Both teams were working on their strategies. On team 2's side, most of them were grouped together, while the rest were keeping watch on the border.

"Any ideas on how we get their flag?" Keiichi inquired. There was a brief pause before anyone answered. "If we can divert some of their attention away from one side of the border, we might be able to slip in." Rena suggested. "It's worth a try," Shion agreed. "If you guys would create a diversion, I'll go in."

"Right," Keiichi and Rena responded. The huddle broke up and took positions along the border. Shion went to the far left end.

Keiichi waited for the right moment. And once it came, he and two of his teammates ran through the border zone and into the enemy's territory. Immediately, about half of the enemy team moved to intercept them.

Keiichi and his two wing men proceeded to scatter and weave around the enemy defense and the crates, trying to look like they were heading for the flag. One of them was not able to keep up the pace and was caught by Rika. Keiichi and his surviving wing man, they moved to the right side of the field, drawing their pursuers away from the left side of the border.

And while their defenses were distracted, Shion made her move. She quickly crossed the border and tried to use the crates to hide herself as she advanced towards the flag. Keiichi and his team mate were forced to pull back to their territory to avoid capture. However, Satoko and Mion saw her crossing and quickly moved to intercept her. Shion tried to out run them, but her path ahead was blocked by two other students who had been hiding behind crates.

Seeing that she could not make it to the flag, Shion turned around and started for border. But Satoko was able to reach her before she could. She dove at Shion, reaching out with her hand. Shion jumped to the left, right in front of a crate, but lost her footing when she landed and tripped. She managed to avoid hitting the crate by leaning to the side and landed on the dry ground. A cloud of dust formed around her from the impact. Satoko's dive resulted in another dust cloud. Mion charged into Shion's dust cloud and Satoko followed soon after.

Keiichi and his surviving teammate managed to escape into the border and were now watching what was going on. However, they could not see what was going on, because of the dust and the crate. A few seconds after Satoko entered the cloud, Shion emerged, running towards her teams side. "That was close," she panted as she had crossed the border.

Suddenly, Rika and three of her team mates charged in on the opposite side of the border from where Shion returned. Keiichi and some of the others moved to intercept the invaders. As soon as they approached, Rika and her teammates scattered. Rena was able to tag one of them, but the others continued. Rika and one of her teammates pressed on towards the flag, while the other, a little girl, turned to retreat. She was not able to get far before she was tagged.

Meanwhile, Keiichi was able to catch up to Rika and her teammate and tagged them. "Is that all they had?" Keiichi asked as he headed back to the border. "Not quite," Shion said. Keiichi turned and saw Shion running crossing the border with their teams flag in her hands. "What are you doing, Shion?" Keiichi exclaimed as Shion brought their flag to the other team's flag.

"It was Mion!" Rena shouted. On the other team's territory, they could see the real Shion getting up from behind one of the crates. "Shion, what happened?" Keiichi asked her as she crossed into their territory. "They trapped me inside that crate," she said, indicating the crate she had gotten up from. "Satoko had tagged me and then sis came up from my left and opened it. Then she and Satoko pushed me in there before I could do anything."

Keiichi suddenly remembered something that happened yesterday, while he was setting up the crates. He had brought a crate to one of the sides, when Mion suddenly got up and told him to put on the other team's side. At the time, he thought she was just being cruel, but now he wondered if it was something else.

"What is it?" Shion asked seeing the look on Keiichi's face. "I remember now," Keiichi said out loud. "Mion had me move that crate to the other side after I placed it."

"I'm disappointed, Keiichi," Mion said as she fixed her hair. "I thought you would have seen through that."

The score is Team 1: 1 Team 2: 0