Haruka's Fanfiction

*NOTE* Alternate Universe wherein I shamelessly borrowed/altered ideas from various media sources and even threw in some of my own. If anything is canon here, it’s probably an accident. Some chapters contain corporal punishment. Yaoi warning.

Earlier chapters can be found here.


Changechildren (Prince of Tennis)

Part 75

By Haruka (haruka@ymail.com)

--

“I wonder if this has been the worst day of my life thus far?” Atobe contemplated out loud, then nodded. “Yes, I believe that it was.”

“You’re not the only one,” Yuushi replied, crawling onto the cushions scattered around the room designated as theirs. “I’ve got permanent heel dents in my back.”

“We know the others must be working at finding us, nya,” Eiji said hopefully. “Inui came up with a plan to save Atobe last time; I’m sure they’ll save us this time, too.”

“Last time powers weren’t being capped,” Ryoma reminded him.

“I’m not sure these guys are as stupid as the Sasabes were,” Atobe replied.

At that moment, the door opened and Baker stuck his head in. “Fuji!” he called out. “Come with me.”

Fuji shivered and got to his feet as the others watched uneasily. The moment the door shut behind them, the boys gave each other worried looks.

“What would he want with Fuji at this time of night?” Sengoku murmured.

“Nothing good.” Yuushi frowned.

--

Fuji reluctantly followed Baker down the hall and into another room. He felt his stomach drop when he saw that it was another bedroom.

Baker shut the door and turned toward the tensai. “And finally, we’re alone,” he leered.

“W-Why is that?” Fuji asked.

“Why do you think?” The man reached out and touched Fuji’s face. “You’re a very beautiful young man, you know.”

The teenager froze. More than anything, he wanted to run, but he knew he wouldn’t get far. He moved away slightly, hoping Baker would get the hint. The man chuckled.

“How cute. You really think you can avoid me?” He smoothed a slow hand over Fuji’s hair down to the base of his neck, then gripped the flesh tightly and pulled him forward. “You listen to me, pretty one,” he growled. “We’re going to have a little fun here, and if you behave yourself, it will all go smoothly and no one will get hurt. If you don’t, you’ll force me to go pick one of the other boys instead. Is that what you want?”

Tears pricked at Fuji’s eyes. How despicable this man was! He lowered his gaze in resignation.

Baker smiled triumphantly and fingered the youngster’s hair. “Good boy ….”

--

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Aoi said to the Soumas as everyone gathered in the foyer. “Ritsu-san, Tarou has said very nice things about you.”

Ritsu blushed and Tarou gave his shoulders a squeeze. “He’s as beautiful as I said, isn’t he?”

A stunned silence fell over the crowd. “’He’?” Shishido repeated in disbelief, staring Ritsu up and down.

“Yes,” Tarou said with a warning look.

“He certainly is lovely,” Sumire stated, smiling at Ritsu, then turned to Shigure. “Tarou said you were all coming to help with the search for the boys, but I’m not sure what else we can do. Their Changechild powers are blocked, and we don’t have anymore leads.”

Inui cleared his throat. “Actually, Sensei, we have a starting point. The van that the police are holding.”

She frowned. “Inui, you know that they called just before the Soumas arrived and said that there was nothing in it they could use that would lead them to the boys.”

“It’s not their fault that they don’t know about Shinji!” Kamio piped up, grinning at his boyfriend. “He’s going to talk to the van itself, and it should know something.”

“Talk to the van?” Yuki repeated, looking toward the blue-haired Fudomine player. “You can do that?”

Shinji glanced at him impassively, then looked away. “Of course I can do that,” he mumbled. “Why would Akira say I could if I couldn’t? That would be rather pointless, and would waste valuable time that we could be using to search. Although we can’t guarantee that the van will know enough to bring us to the others, but it will at least know who the accomplice is if he was in there with them at the time –“

Kyo leaned toward Yuki. “I think this guy could talk paint off a wall,” he murmured. His cousin nodded agreement.

“Very interesting!” Shigure said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Changechildren powers seem to be very useful. However,” he held up a finger for emphasis, “the van is in police impound, and getting to it might prove difficult. We might be able to help.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Aoi told him, “but we couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t; I offered.” Shigure waved a hand toward his cousins. “The three of us have … powers of our own. May I demonstrate?”

Before she could say yes or no, the strange man had embraced her closely. There was a loud popping sound and a cloud of blue smoke surrounded them. When it cleared, Shigure was gone, and a large black dog remained.

“What …?!” Aoi gasped, and the kids gathered around for a better look.

“Our family is cursed by the spirit animals of the Chinese zodiac,” the dog said in Shigure’s voice. “I’m the Dog, Yuki is the Rat, Kyo the Cat –“

“There’s no cat in the Chinese zodiac,” Mizuki interrupted.

Kyo gave him a Look. “It’s a long story.”

Shigure ignored them and continued, “And as for Ritsu ….” He glanced significantly toward Tarou, who looked at his boyfriend.

“Ritsu?” Tarou queried.

The pretty Souma sighed. “I transform as well,” he admitted. “It only works when you embrace a member of the opposite sex. Do … do you want to see it?”

Tarou placed his hands on Ritsu’s shoulders. “Not if it makes you uncomfortable. Which spirit animal are you?”

Ritsu lowered his gaze to the ground. “The Monkey,” he whispered. “Not very romantic, is it?”

Tarou lifted Ritsu’s chin gently. “I’m sure you’re adorable in that form, just as you are now.”

Gratitude and love shone in Ritsu’s eyes. “If I can help your boys, I’m willing to do it.”

Inui and Mizuki shared a glance. “We might be able to use at least a couple of you in this,” Inui said. “Kaidoh’s power relates to animals, as well, but he can’t be everywhere at once.”

“And frankly, the fewer of the younger boys that have to go, the better,” Sumire told him firmly. “It’s bad enough that Shinji is going.”

“Actually,” Mizuki looked at Inui, “with the Soumas’ help, this may just have become a lot easier to pull off.”

Another pop was heard and this time when the blue smoke cleared, Shigure was back in human form, but was completely naked.

He grinned sheepishly. “Did I forget to mention the one small glitch in our transformations?”

--

None of the boys had spoken a word since Baker took Fuji away fifteen minutes earlier. Most of them would cast anxious glances toward the door, but Yuushi was up and pacing. Finally, he stopped.

“We can’t let this happen. We have to stop it.”

“How can we do that from in here?” Sanada asked in irritation. “Obviously we all want to save Fuji, but –“

“But nothing!” Yuushi said with more force than most of them had ever heard from him before. “I don’t care that we don’t have our powers – we weren’t totally helpless BEFORE we got them, were we?!”

“No, we weren’t.” Atobe stood up. “Yuushi’s right. There’s only one obstacle in our way.” He pointed at the door. “There must be a way past it.”

“None of us are strong enough to break the lock,” Eiji said worriedly. “The door is solid wood, it’s too thick to break down.”

“If we can’t break it down, there’s only one other way. We force them to open it.” Yuushi went to the door and began pounding on it with both fists. “HEY, OPEN THE DOOR!”

Atobe ran over and gave the door a few strong kicks. “OPEN UP!” he bellowed.

The other boys all rushed over to the join in with the banging, kicking, and yelling.

--

There were six who made the planned trip to the police impound yard. Other than Shinji and Aoi, the rest were Soumas.

“I’m not sure how I ended up being part of this,” Aoi whispered to Shinji.

“It was either you or Ryuuzaki-san, and Shigure-san chose you,” Shinji replied, then paused, glancing at her. “No surprise there.”

She nodded resignedly. Having only known Shigure for an hour, she still could tell Shinji had hit the nail on the head.

“All right,” Shigure murmured as they crept up to the fence. “We know what Inui and Mizuki came up with, so let’s get to it. Yuki, you’re up.”

Yuki sighed and looked apologetically at Aoi. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s all right, it’s for the boys,” she said, and gave Yuki a hug. The predicable pop and coloured smoke left a small silver rat behind.

“Head for the booth, Yuki,” Shigure instructed and watched the rat run through a small hole in the fence. “Kyo, you’re next!”

“Why do I have to distract the dogs when you’re capable of controlling them, anyway?” Kyo complained.

“It’s insurance,” Shigure told him. “Hurry up!”

Kyo sighed and allowed Aoi to embrace him. The resulting orange cat slipped under the fence and darted off. Moments later, a horrified shout came from the office, and further away, dogs started barking.

“Okay, the guy in the booth is busy with Yuki and the dogs are chasing Kyo.” Shigure gave Ritsu a nudge toward Aoi. “Now we need the keys.”

“Yes, Shigure-Niisan.” Ritsu bowed to the redhaired woman. “Thank you in advance.”

“Certainly.” She smiled and hugged him. He transformed into a small, wide-eyed monkey that easily clambered over the fence and skittered off toward the office. Ducking behind the tire of an impounded motorcycle, Ritsu watched the guard run out of the booth to escape the persistent rat that was Yuki. The monkey quickly took the opportunity to run inside for the keys to the gate.

When Ritsu came back out of the booth, the guard, who had just picked up a tire iron to smash Yuki with, stopped to stare at him. “Monkey!” he pointed.

Ritsu dashed past him, crossing paths with Yuki, and climbed half-way up the gate to unlock it. Before the guard could do anything to stop him, a big black dog burst through the now-open gate and headed right for him.

“Woof!” the dog declared in Shigure’s voice. “Bow wow!”

The little rat rolled its beady eyes and ran out of the impound yard to return to where Aoi was hiding with all of their clothes. Shinji passed him as he went, noting that the guard had dropped the tire iron and was now trying to run in the opposite direction, away from Shigure. In the distance, the sound of the other dogs pursuing Kyo could still be heard. It was now safe to go question the van.

--

In the room across the hall from the boys’, Smith had been trying to sleep when he was jarred awake by enough noise to wake long-dead ancestors. He threw aside the covers. “I’m gonna strangle those little monsters!” he snapped and stalked out the door.

The din was even louder from the hallway. Where the hell was Baker and why wasn’t HE stopping this?! Smith wondered, grinding his teeth as he began unlocking the boys’ door. “Shut up in there or I’m gonna --!”

He never got the chance to finish. The moment the lock clicked open, he was swarmed by seven teenaged boys. He realized in horror that he had neglected to bring his gun with him.

Akaya noticed it at the same time. “He’s unarmed!”

“Sengoku!” Atobe barked an unspoken order and the orange-haired boxer swung, knocking Smith out cold with one solid punch.

Yuushi had already gone in search of Fuji, hoping he wasn’t too late.

--

End of Part 75

(2008)

Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi.

This fic is not to be re-posted.