Ryoma checked the time in his phone. Thirty-minutes before eleven. He better hurry. He still had to go back to the cabin and help out with the preparations for lunch. Unlike the second and the first team who designated permanent tasks on groups, their team representative designed a table for the members, changing tasks in the morning and the afternoon in proper rotation. "That way, everyone would experience each chore and it wouldn't be unfair to those designated with the harder ones." Sakuno explained to them. There were groans of disapproval from some of the lazier members but it was approved by the majority.
He reached the Representatives' cabin and was supposed to march to the gate when an odd scene made him stop. The door of the cabin opened and someone came out.
Ryoma's eyes widened a little. "Tezuka-buchou?" He said and rubbed his eyes, just in case they were playing tricks on him. He looked again.
No. It was indeed Tezuka Kunimitsu, the captain of the Seigaku tennis club. He saw the captain looking warily from side to side as if checking for anyone's presence. He had what looked like a paper bag in his hand. He was clutching it protectively.
"Eh?" Ryoma said as a thought hit him. He recognized that paper bag. It was the one that Ryouko was swinging around when they went to the beach last night. "Why is Buchou holding onto that?" He asked himself.
Tezuka finally exited the gates and took a moment to lock it with a key from the set he has in his hand. It jingled as he struggled with the task. He placed the keys inside his pocket and went away in a hurry, still looking around warily. It looked as if he was nervous, but Ryoma thought that he must be seeing it wrong. Tezuka Kunimitsu, the Captain of the Seigaku Tennis club, nervous? It just didn't make any sense.
But why on earth did he come out from the Representatives' cabin with Ryouko's paper bag in his hand? Ryoma is extremely mystified and despite of himself, he felt a heavy feeling settle in the pit of his stomach.
Each of the girls carry a set of keys to the gate and the door of the cabin. The fact that Tezuka had one set with him means that one of the girls lent or gave it to him. In addition, it was Ryouko's paper bag that he was carrying which leads to the concusion that the girl who gave him the keys is...
"Ryouko." Ryoma said, completing his deduction. He scoffed. He thought that she might be hiding in a corner somewhere, crying her eyes out. "Ryouko wouldn't cry. Are you stupid?" His subconscious told him. "Okay, maybe not crying but at least moping or feeling upset." He answered it.
Hecould imagine her doing that, but not certainly sending their club's captain toget something for her. Ryoma's fist clenched. He felt unpleasant. He had been circling the campsite for nearly an hour. He just made a fool out of himself for worrying.
He turned around and marched away. Never again would he spend another minute of today on worrying about Fujioka Ryouko. He tried to focus on getting back to the main cabin but a thought was gnawing at the edge of his mind. "Hold it right there." His subconscious told him. "If she sent him to get something for her, it only means that she cannot go to the cabin to get it herself."
Ryoma stopped on his tracks. She cannot go herself? Why? Did something happen to her?
Whatever it is, the answer probably lies on whatever is inside that paper bag that their captain carried. If Ryouko is in real trouble, Tezuka-buchou won't be prancing around the Representatives' cabin... He'd be right there by her side.
An image of Tezuka kneeling beside an injured Ryouko popped in his mind. "Are you okay?" The captain asked. "No." Ryouko answered and leaned onto his shoulder.
Well, that thought was even more unpleasant. Not just unpleasant, it was nonsense. Why would Tezuka-buchou and Ryouko...
Ryoma shook his head to shake it off. He is thinking of ridiculous thoughts. Those two are not even close to each other.
"Why is today full of damned surprises?" He said in annoyance. First, he heard his name being mentioned between Ichidou and Ryouko. Second, he got into a mess by nosing into other people's business and accidentally upset her. Third, while he had no idea where she is, Tezuka-buchou came waltzing into the picture and making his blood boil for reasons that he cannot fathom.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Ryouko's herd of cousins or my noisy old man show up out of nowhere." He said irritably and continued on his way.
~~~
"Why am I doing this?" Tezuka asked himself with a sigh as he was climbing the stairs to the second floor of the girls' cabin. It took him ten minutes to reach the Representatives' cabin from the area of the fourth team. It was a long run.
Just ten minutes ago, Ryouko mentioned asking a favor of him regarding the 'accident' that she stumbled with. That was how she worded it.
"I need some things." She said. "But I don't have them with me right now. They're in our cabin, the one I share with the girls." She added.
"What is it? Perhaps I can get it for you." He told her.
She motioned for him to lean closer. He did so. She cupped her hand at the side of her mouth and whispered near his ear. That whisper made the ever-serious and poker-faced captain's ears go red.
"Seriously?" He asked as he stood upright.
"Seriously." Ryouko said, nodding. "I'm sorry about asking you, Cap but..."
"You don't have a choice." He completed for her. She nodded in response.
Well, he didn't have to go fetch it himself, Ryouko said. He could just deliver a message to Ayase Mami, Kurihara Miyako or Tachibana An so they can help Ryouko with the problem.
But the idea of himself telling one of those younger girls... Imagining those words coming out of his mouth to inform them... The thought was enough to humiliate him.
And so here he is... Doing the crime with his own hands and feet.
"The farthest one on the left." He mumbled, remembering the directions Ryouko had said. He entered the room which was unlocked. "Seriously, these girls have no fear nor any sense of security." He commented in his mind. He made a mental note to scold Ryouko about it later.
Once he was inside the room, he recalled the directions again. The bed on the right side. Top drawer of the bedside table. He immediately went there and firstly made sure that he is picking the right bed. He saw Ryouko's duffle bag under it and her laptop on top of the bed. He sighed in relief. He got the right one.
Tezuka knelt down to open the said drawer. Rows of neatly folded white, blue and lavender-colored underwear layed undisturbed inside. Tezuka coughed once and cleared his thoat uneasily.
Never. Never in his whole life that he imagined himself in this kind of situation.
His hand hovered over the drawer, fingers shaking. "This is harder than my rehabilitation sessions." He thought. How nice would it be if he was in Germany, doing another round of rehabilitation exercises instead of being inside a room that two girls shared, looking for Ryouko's panties, sanitary napkins and feminine wash.
Unable to grab one in his right mind and with his bare hands, he took out his handkerchief and used it as a glove. He picked a lavender-colored one with white roses on them, clipping it with one thumb and forefinger and immediately looked around for something to put it in. His eyes caught sight of a paper bag under the bed. He emptied the contents on the surface of the bed and dropped the underwear inside it.
He caught his breath. "One down. Two to go." He told himself.
He remembered something as he stood up. At the site of the fourth team in front of the restrooms, he was about to leave when Ryouko called him. "And since you're already there... Please get me a pair of clean shorts too. Second drawer of the closet. Left side." She said before slamming the door and hiding inside the comfort room.
Tezuka sighed. He went to the closet, opened the second drawer on the left side and grabbed the first shorts he saw. He didn't have much trouble in touching that one.
He recalled what Ryouko's instructions are again. "The feminine wash and the napkins are inside my sanitation kit. It's a purple pouch inside my duffle bag. The blue one."
He took the blue duffle from under the bed and zipped it open. Inside were a few tennis balls, sports magazines both local and foreign, a few packs of potato chips, two cans of soda, several bottles of energy drink, arm bands, wrist and ankle weights and some towels. Despite of himself, Tezuka gave a slight smile. Other people who would peek inside that duffel bag would think that it belonged to a boy.
He located the purple pouch, took it and threw it inside the paper bag. He also grabbed one of the small bottles of energy drink.
It took him only half the time to scram away from the place in comparison to the time he needed to enter it. The ten minutes he used to run to the Representatives' cabin was almost halved as he returned to the fourth team's area. Panting, he knocked on the door of the girls' restroom.
It opened into a gap and Ryouko's head peeked out. "Well, that was faster than I've thought." She greeted.
"Here you go." He said in between breaths, holding out the paper bag to her.
A relieved smile formed on Ryouko's face. Without a word, she snatched the paper bag from him and slammed the door shut.
Tezuka straightened up and placed a hand on his forehead. He almost jumped when the door creaked open slowly.
Ryoukopeeked out, her eyes looking timid. "Otsukaresama deshita. (Thank you for thehard work.)" She said in a soft voice and closed the door again.
Tezuka let out a silent snort of laughter. So she does realize what sort of trouble she got him into. She's obviously embarrassed for it.
After a few minutes, Ryouko came out. Tezuka was standing out front with his back to the door. She cleared her throat to inform him of her presence.
"Ready to go?" He asked, looking over his shoulder at her.
Ryouko nodded and avoided meeting his eyes. "Thanks. I won't forget this, Cap." She told him.
The two walked alongside each other in silence with Ryouko swinging the paper bag on her right hand quietly.
Even the usually silent Tezuka found the atmosphere uncomfortable. Ryouko had been the instructor of the freshmen for a while but he couldn't remember any moment that he had been alone with the little coach. Whenever they talked, it was always about training and club matters. He had not even expressed his gratitude yet towards her efforts of strengthening Seigaku.
Echizen is still an immature pillar, Momoshiro and Kaidoh are still raw as leaders... It was worrying him, especially once he graduates with Fuji and the others. Fujioka Ryouko, although young in years and small in stature, provided the support needed for the club. Her presence made him feel some relief. Ryuzaki-sensei told him that too.
He cleared his throat and attempted to start a conversation. "Isn't it too early for you to have..." He searched for the proper term and couldn't make himself say it. "You know..." He completed.
"No. It's normal, my mother said. She got hers even earlier. She was ten and a half." Ryouko answered. "I got mine for six months now." She added.
Silence blanketed the two of them.
"This conversation is creeping me out." Both of them said at the same time. Surprised of the sudden synchronization, they looked at each other with wide eyes and bursted into laughter.
"So you can laugh." Ryouko said, looking at her captain in an amused way. "I've always thought that you're immune to laughter."
Tezuka composed herself and fixed the usual stern look on his face. "I laugh only when there's something funny."
"And what's funnier than a twelve-year-old girl sending her guy senior on an errand to fetch her panties?" Ryouko said.
"Don't say that so lightly. I nearly died out there." Tezuka told her, pushing his glasses up his nose.
Ryouko pursed her lips to keep from smiling. "Well... I'm grateful. And everyone in the Japanese Market knows what it means to have a Fujioka indebted to you. It's an honor. A Fujioka never forgets to return favors." She said, swinging the paper bag on her side playfully.
"That's a comfort." Tezuka said, his tone sarcastic. He took out something from his pocket. "Well I did take one of these..." He said as he showed her the small bottle of energy drink. He twisted the cap open and started drinking. That long run made him parched.
"By the way senpai?" Ryouko suddenly said.
Tezuka gave her a side glance, his eyes asking 'What?'.
"Is lavender with white roses your type?" She blurted out.
Tezuka choked on the energy drink and coughed. He hit his chest a few times to get it down. Once he was done with it, he turned his stern eyes at her, clearly not amused. "Stop it." He said in a threatening tone.
"I'm just wondering why out of the dozen inside that drawer, you picked this one." She told him matter-of-factly.
"I'm warning you." He retorted, narrowing his eyes at her.
Ryouko made the gesture of zipping her mouth and throwing away the key. She shrugged and started skipping ahead of him.
Tezuka just realized that he found himself stuck with a troublesome kouhai. He sighed. "They say that winning the national championship is impressive. What I did for the last thirty minutes is more impressive. Handling Ryouko is twice more impressive. I applaud anyone who does it without flinching." He mumbled under his breath as he quickened his pace to catch up to her.
~~~
Ryouko held a glass to the air and clinked her spoon on it. "Quiet!" She shouted above the heads of the members of the second team.
"That's so rude, princess. We're still eating." Shiraishi told her, piercing a piece of apple with his fork. They were having bunny-cut portions of Fuji apples for dessert and Kouhei, Senri and Kintarou in Fuji Yuuta's table were fooling around and teasing him that he looks like the bunny-cut apples. He was fuming with rage but refused to stoop down to their childish levels. He is, after all, a year older than them.
Ryouko did not appreciate the princess comment but she let it off the hook. "I just want to interrupt you for a few minutes. I have to announce the details of the second event." She said.
The hall went quiet. No one would admit it but each member of the second team was bitter about the last loss. They were clearly the strongest team. Their line-up is unbelievable. That is, if tennis skills is the category. They figured that they cannot lose for the second time.
"At three o'clock sharp this afternoon, we would gather at the center of the campsite and have a Cavalry Battalion Survival Battle." Ryouko announced.
"A cavalry battle?" Kintarou said with a loud and excited voice. "Cool!" He punched a fist in the air.
"Oh." Kajimoto said, swirling his glass of orange juice. "Interesting..." He added.
"I am guessing that it isn't the usual cavalry battle that we know." Sanada commented.
"Correct, Danchou." Ryouko smiled. "It has a set of rules, making it quite more complicated." She looked at the document in her hand and started reading.
"This is not just a cavalry battle. It's a battalion-type of survival in the field with all members participating, including the girls. Each of the members are soldiers. The team will have a total of four cavalries, and each cavalry will be made up of one rider, one front defense and two bringing up the rear. That makes sixteen members making four cavalries." She started with the explanations.
"But we have eighteen members." Yukimura said.
"Correct. The remaining two will be free-moving soldiers." She answered. "That makes a total of eighteen members. Each of the riders as well as the two free-moving soldiers will wear a head band with different set of points written on them: one with ten points, twenty points, thirty points, forty points, fifty points and the largest, one hundred points. The opposing cavalries would try to take the head bands from each other." She announced.
"Then this means that the winner would not be determined by which team has the most number of head bands at the end of the game. It is by the points in the head bands which will be added over, making this a point-based system." Atobe commented.
"Atobe-san is taking part in the discussion." Ritsu said in surprise.
"Shut up brat." Atobe yelled at him, annoyed.
"Yessir." Ritsu said. The other members laughed.
Ryouko smiled and shook her head. "Yes, Keigo spoke rightly. This is a point-based system. Only, there is a catch. The riders and the free-moving soldiers will wear the head bands in a reversed manner, the point mark side hidden." Ryouko took a wrist band with a red 'R' on it and flipped the front to the other side to hide the mark.
There were whoo's of amusement from the team members.
"Clever." Sanada said. "That way, no one would know who is wearing the one-hundred-points head band. They won't be able to differentiate the other points as well."
"Correct."Ryouko replied with a smile and looked at the document again. "The first ruleis the point-based system and the way the head bands are worn. The second ruleis: Even if a cavalry gets its rider's head band stolen, they won't bedisqualified from the game. The game follows a time-limit of one hour. As long as the hour is not exhausted, the cavalry can try to retrieve their own headband from the opponent that stole it or try and steal another cavalry's head band."
Kite whistled. "I'm starting to like these rules." He smirked evilly.
"Is that all? Are there more?" Aoi said in anticipation.
"There is an additional rule and it is very important. It is very complex too, so listen carefully." She told them.
The boys remained quiet and leaned closer to the front. Ryouko continued. "Two of the team's members will be called Forts. These two individual soldiers are very crucial to the victory or loss of the team. There will be a space for each team inside the battefield wherein opponents are not allowed to enter. These are the territories. The team who would get their Forts hostaged by the opposing team, both of them placed inside an opposing team's territory, would mean the end of the game for that particular team. The Forts are the moving headquarters. If the enemy steals your base, then you have no chance of survival. If we got our Forts hostaged, then the points on the head bands that we have stolen would not be counted."
"Ehhh?" The freshmen chorused. "That's a bit unfair." Kouhei said.
"No it's not. It makes a lot of sense. Just like checkmate is announced when the King is captured in a game of chess, if important people got eliminated in the game, it will mean losing." Ryouko told them.
"And how will we identify who the Forts are?" Tachibana asked.
"They will be wearing a crown on their head." Ryouko answered.
"Then they'll be easy to identify." Mizuki said, his hand on his chin.
"Correct." Ryouko said. "There is, however, a catch."
"What catch?" Yuuta asked eagerly.
"If the team whose Forts got hostaged will take two Forts from the opposing teams and keep them in their territory by the end of the game, the disqualification rule is null and void and the points will still be counted." She said.
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The Forts after all, has the same value." Hiyoshi commented.
"That's right." Ryouko agreed with him. She gave him a wink. Hiyoshi looked away in embarrassment. "Well, those are all the rules they gave. We should make the most of them and think up strategies on how to up our game. We have to gain some advantage above the other teams by utilizing the rules well... In my opinion, that is the point of this event."
"And I suppose you have already thought some devious plots in that head of yours?" Mizuki told her, smirking.
"Oh?" Ryouko said, smirking back. "You know me too well, Mizuki-san..." She answered with an evil smile, her eyes glinting in a menacing way. Internally, the boys all agreed that she is probably more dangerous than all four cavalries of boys put together.
"I have a few ideas. Of course I want them to get approved by the Captain and the Vice Captain first, as well as the members who will carry them out. Team work is of the essence in this game... So I need all of you to lend me your ears for a moment..." She said and made a 'come on' gesture with her hand, urging them to come closer.
And who in their right mind would not want to come closer to Fujioka Ryouko? Team 2's very own Venus with the poison of Medusa.
Oh. And I got the inspiration for the cavalry battle from...
Boku no Hero Academia! Which I just finished watching. LOL
Hope you enjoyed this chapter guys!