Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis? Not mine. Got that? Great.
A/N: I dedicate this chapter to KiTtEn18sMiLe and Artic-Fox 14. :D
Warning: There will be OOCness due to circumstances invented by my imagination. Character death.
We've come along a long way so here it goes, the fifteenth chapter!
Chapter 15: The history of the place holds the truth.
A few teens paled at what Ryoma had said. "Weird tales?" Gakuto asked in disbelief, but in his mind, he wished that Ryoma was only joking. The boy nodded in reply. "I have heard some tales about the previous owners of this area." He added, which was to the dismay of some frightened tennis players in the room.
"Like what, Echizen?" Shiraishi asked with a gleam on his eyes. He had always like to hear about histories of houses, mostly the weird ones. They were exciting, to say the least. "Well, the oldest one would be about a few decades ago. This land was first formally owned by a family, and has been passed down for generations. I'm the third owner who is not from that family." Ryoma informed them.
"It was said that this area used to be inhabited by numerous animals, but sometime during the first family's ownership, the animals gradually disappeared during the day. At night, you can only hear a handful of sounds made by animals. At that time, the loss of animals is a kind of ill omen for such a virgin forest." Ryoma informed them.
A small silence came upon the teens, emphasizing Ryoma's point. They haven't heard or seen one animal ever since they had reached the mansion. A weird feeling descended upon them, but before anyone could act on it, Ryoma spoke once more.
"The first family, as I had told you, had owned this place for many generations but they sold it after a few years because of the eerie forest. The second family, the first not from the family who owned this, didn't last long though. They were brutally murdered after staying here for a few months. Their bodies were never found, but the house was painted with their blood." Ryoma's voice grew cold when he told them that.
"After two years, a real estate agent was able to sell this place, who was the previous owner before me. They were a family of five, made up of a father, a mother, a son and two daughters. They had stayed here in peace for nearly a year before a casualty happened." He continued as he turned his head to look at the view behind him.
"One time, the son was playing outside. When night fell, he hadn't come back inside. His parents and sisters searched for him everywhere in the clearing but there was no trace of him. It was then did they finally decide to set foot into the forest. They could've waited for morning, but the mother's worry forced them to continue." He tightened his fist as he remembered the story.
"As they walked around as a group, they stumbled upon the boy's cap, a proof that the boy had passed there. They continued their search until they reached a huge lake. It was there did the find the boy, huddled and crying by the bank. The mother was the first to reach him. It was a magnificent reunion, as I was told." Ryoma's voice was light but his face portrayed the opposite.
All of a sudden, the room they were in spun then soon warped into a small clearing at night next to a huge lake which looked pretty deep as well. Near the bank of the lake were flowers, red spider lilies, and small boulders which almost circled the whole lake. The forest around them looked the same, but also slightly different. A small cry shook them out of their reverie and into the scene unfolding before them.
By the edge of the lake, just like in Ryoma's story, was a family of five, who all had an uncanny resemblance to their friends. The father was like Tezuka, complete with the thin-rimmed glasses and shaggy brown hair, but the father had a smile on his face. The daughters looked a lot like Izumi and Sachiko, mostly with their eccentric hair color a light shade of red, and they had big smiles of relief on their faces.
The mother had a striking resemblance to Eiji, with her bright smile and her hair though was of a toned-down red. The son's face was out of their view at first but when he hugged his mother, what they saw shocked them all. 'Echizen!' They all thought, and looked around in search for the young male. He wasn't there.
"It was cut short though, their reunion I mean. Their happiness was shot down and had sunk in a few mere seconds." Ryoma's voice rang in the air, but it seemed like only they could hear his voice. They turned their eyes towards the scene before them.
The Ryoma-look-alike had a dark grin on his face as he hugged his mother. "Oh, Ray! You had us all worried!" The mother cried; her voice was full of worry. Her cries were the only sound at the moment.
The group of teens knew that she was speaking in English, but for some reason they did not know, all of them had understood her perfectly.
"I'm sorry, Mother." The boy whispered in a soft voice before a splash of red appeared before his eyes. The daughters' screams sounded like loudly ringing bells to their ears. The look on their faces was that of horror and fear.
The mother fell back to the lake with a horrified and hurt look on her face as the boy named Ray let her go. Her body sunk down in a matter of seconds with her thick clothing weighing her down, leaving a trail of blood in the water which gradually disappeared. "Why did you do that, Ray?" The taller one of the girls cried as she kneeled next to her brother. Ray did not reply but he had a maniacal grin dancing on his lips.
The large group of teens felt a cold shiver go up their spines. The fact that the little boy named Ray had a huge resemblance with their friend – the scar that ran over his left eye the only difference – did not decrease the foreboding feeling they had in the pits of their stomachs.
Ray's sisters were kneeling beside him, asking him to tell them his reason for shooting their mother in the chest at point blank. The father, on the other hand, was standing were his wife had fell into the lake. She had drifted away a few more feet into the middle of the lake before she had sunk down, disappearing from his sight.
"Ray, why did you kill her?" The father's deep voice rang in the air, his voice shaky and unsure. His back was facing Ray and his sisters. Ray's response, however, was downright unusual. He sang. His voice ringing in the air like a wind chime, but the weight of it felt like a ton.
"Then he sang this odd little nursery rhyme."
"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady."
Ryoma sang, happening to stay in sync with Ray. Ray's chime-like voice molded with Ryoma's. The grin in the cherub-like face of the little boy in front of them was gone, and was replaced by small smile. He ignored the blood in his hands and arms as he stared up into the starless night sky, the full moon at its peak.
Near the end of the song, Ryoma's and Ray's voices melded into one as the world spun, and soon, they were all back in the room as Ryoma sang the last line. When the teen looked at the others' expressions, he saw scared and horrified looks among them. "What happened to you guys?" He asked.
"We saw the events o fthat night you were talking about, otouto." Izumi shakily replied. "Yeah, they looked a lot like the people we know." Youhei and Kouhei added at the same time. They noticed Ryoma's eyes widening at their revelation before he looked down as he fished something out of his pocket, careful not to move too much as to not increase the pain in his knees. "Are these the people you saw?" He asked as he handed the picture in his hand to person closest to him, who happened to be Kirihara.
The older black-haired teen took the picture and checked the faces of the people in the picture. "Yes, they are the people we saw." He replied as he handed the picture back to the younger teen who look bewildered at his response for a second. "Who are they, Echizen?" Saeki asked.
"They are the previous owners of this house."
A/N: The words in bold face are spoken in English. Unless specifically stated otherwise, this format is standard for the story format.
Okay. The 'London Bridge'-thing was inspired by Kuroshitsuji. (Not Mine!)
You know those episodes where Drocell sings some lines of the said nursery rhyme to carry out orders for his puppets, and were Sebastian sings it to defeat the puppets made of steel? Yeah, that. After watching Kuroshitsuji, I never heard 'London Bridge' as the same ever again. (Sebastian's voice is so- *shudders and melts*)
Anyway, I hope I didn't make the characters too OOC. I might have been a little excited when I typed this so... Please tell me any typos and inconsistencies, even grammar mistakes (being the "Grammar Nazi" that I am).
Constructive criticism is appreciated in the form of private messages and/or reviews.