It's been a while since I've updated this story, minna! I don't own IE or any of its characters. They belong to Level-5.

J: Enjoy!

Literally Ch.3

It was soon after school, and pretty much everyone had forgotten about the raining cats and dogs incident in the morning. The dogs and cats had somehow miraculously disappeared a few hours after Minamisawa had announced that it was raining cats and dogs, literally.

At soccer practice, Tenma noticed that Kariya was missing. "Where's Kariya?"

"He's not in the classroom; I checked before leaving just now." Tsurugi stretched and jerked his head in the direction of the classroom.

Just then, Kariya ran down the stairs, nearly crashing into Hikaru, who jumped in fright.

"Where were you?" demanded Hikaru, recovering from his fright.

"I was finishing an errand… for sensei!" Kariya said.

Hikaru stared at his friend. "I heard sensei shouting at you to do your homework properly… Does that count as an errand?"

Kariya flushed. "Liar!"

Hikaru shook his head. "It's the sad truth. Accept reality!"

"Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Kariya screeched. Apparently, he had forgotten about what had triggered the bizarre rain from earlier on.

Somewhere next to Shindou, Kirino yelped. "Kageyama… your pants!"

"Huh?" Hikaru looked down. Bright orange and red flames were flickering on his pants, working dangerously down to his feet. "Help!"

Kariya scrambled away from his friend in a hurry. "What happened?"

"You happened!" Minamisawa, who had stopped stroking his hair, rushed over.

"What?" Poor Hikaru was still trying to beat out the flames.

"You said something that made Kageyama's pants catch fire, literally." Kurama explained to a very confused Kariya.

"Here, Hikaru!" Midori splashed all the water from the water cooler onto Hikaru, dousing Kariya, Tenma and the owner of flaming pants thoroughly. Sadly, Tsurugi wasn't fast enough to dodge the water, and the right side of his body was wet.

Cursing, Tsurugi squeezed the water out of his shirt and scowled at Midori. "Was that necessary?"

Midori was too busy fussing over Tenma and Hikaru to notice him.

Hikaru stood there, sopping wet and chilled to the bone. He was shivering hard. Although it was summer, the wind was quite strong and it made the temperature drop by several degrees.

"I'm freezing! I feel like an ice statue!" complained Tenma.

"No!" shouted Tsurugi, but it was too late. Tenma was encased in a block of ice, with wisps of frost curling off him.

"Heck…" Shindou muttered. "What's going on?"

"We have to be careful when we speak. Whatever we say comes true literally." Sangoku said.

"Okay… How do we get Matsukaze to unfreeze?" asked Kurama.

"I dunno." Kirino shrugged.

All of a sudden, two figures appeared behind Tenma. "Just in time. Luckily, too, or this dude would've been an ice statue for much longer,' said a voice in relief.

"All because of that silly Midorikawa!" The voice's companion growled.

"Shut up, Deasta!"

"Zip it, Sain!"

"Mmmph!" A zip replaced Sain's mouth. Sain unzipped it and glared at Deasta. "What did I tell you?"

"You told me that you were a useless, ugly idiot?" Deasta looked back at Sain with an innocent expression on his face, which was almost impossible for a demon to make.

Endou, who had been brooding quietly in a corner since the start of practice, stood up quickly. "Sain? Deasta? What are you two doing here?"

Sain smiled. "Hi, Endou-kun."

Deasta wasn't quite as friendly as his counterpart. "Oi, didn't Green-Tea Head call you about us?"

"Deasta!" Sain elbowed the demon painfully in the ribs. "Show some respect."

Then, Endou's phone rang. Endou sighed at the ill timing, and picked up the phone. "Hello?" Endou's expression changed drastically when he heard the voice on the opposite end of the phone. "Really? So those two are going to make everything normal again?"

Deasta sweatdropped. "Don't talk like that as if we aren't here!"

"Okay! I'll ask the soccer team to help them. Thanks, Midorikawa. Bye!" Endou stuck his phone back into his pocket.

"See? Midorikawa was on time!" Sain said.

"Che." Deasta didn't look convinced.

"Minna! Listen up!" Endou clapped his hands and gathered everyone around him. "There's this purple sphere thingy that Sain and Deasta are trying to capture. So far, its aura is only affecting Raimon Town so it has to be hiding somewhere! I want you guys to help look for the sphere. If you don't, there will be a lot more ice-statues around."

"What?" Kurama exclaimed.

Endou explained again, slowly this time. When he was done, Minamisawa's expression brightened. "So that's why it was raining cats and dogs!" he exclaimed.

"Where shall we look for the sphere?" asked Aoyama.

"Do we need to divide ourselves into groups?" asked Ichino.

"Two to three in a group!" Endou announced. "You can plan out where you are going to search among yourselves. Now, get going."

Ichino grabbed Aoyama. Hamano and Hayami paired up. Shindou and Kirino stayed where they were, close to each other. Kariya pulled Hikaru over to him. The rest divided themselves up into groups.

"How about Tenma?" asked Tsurugi, his forehead creasing.

"I'll fix this problem." Sain stepped forwards, his eyes focused in concentration. A bright beam of orange shot out from his hands and slowly melted the ice.

"Ahhhh!" Tenma came back to life, shivering. "Cold, cold, cold!"

"Who's your group mate, Tsurugi?" asked Kirino.

"Tenma." Tsurugi pointed to his best friend.

"What? Where are we going?" Tenma protested, not knowing what was going on.

"I'll explain to you on the way. C'mon, Tenma!" Tsurugi dragged Tenma away.

"Well…" Shindou said. "Let's start searching, minna."

Everyone went off in different directions.

How lovely, so they're going on a search now.

J: You're starting to sound like your math teacher..

Really?

J: Yes.

Review, please!