A/N: ʘ‿ʘ;

Thank you for all the reviews, everyone! Sorry it took me so long to get back.

Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.

Warnings: Ditto.

Pairings: Ditto.

Chapter Seven

"Join or don't. Fight or don't. Those have always been your choices."

They'd gathered in the lounge room of the Seigaku dorm, shooing out some of the recalcitrant second years that had entered and watching as a pair of freshmen wheeled in a whiteboard from one of the study rooms. If it was privacy Kaidoh was looking for, the lounge offered the best alternative for their large group - and fortunately, the juniors were too scared to ask many questions and the freshmen abided by every order they were given.

In just under 10 minutes, Kaidoh had the room set up like he was ready to give a presentation, and the seniors had no choice but to take their seats among the many available. Momo remained at the front with his peer, although Echizen took up a slouched position on the couch by the furthest wall, a clear indication he wasn't going to be explaining much of anything to them.

Fuji eyed his roommate but said nothing, turning his attention back to where Kaidoh was uncapping a black marker.

"You would have pieced together a fair bit of this yourselves," Kaidoh started, writing 'TENGOKU' at the top of the board evenly. "But we'll explain some of the other details so you can understand exactly what is happening at this school."

Under the school's name, Kaidoh began listing the dormitories horizontally. "We'll start with what this school is: as far as has been researched, it seems to serve as a link between our world, our reality - and another vastly different one. The names vary for that other world depending on who you ask, but we refer to it as 'Eden'."

Momo snickered.

"That's a strange name to give to the home of these monsters," Fuji observed.

Kaidoh shook his head. "Maybe 'Hellscape' seemed a little too on the nose?" he returned. "In any case, Tengoku Gakuen serves as the link that connects our world to Eden, which is why so many of these impossible things can happen here."

Inui perked up. "You mentioned research? We know that several students enrolled here already knowing what Tengoku Gakuen is, which leads us to preclude that older generations who have survived Tengoku may be the ones leading this research... But how long has this been going on?"

"Over 100 years," Kaidoh answered in finality.

The seniors stilled in shock. While they had expected some lengthy exposure, they hadn't realized it would have been through generations of people. Momo and Kaidoh may not just be the sons of former Tengoku alumni - they could be great-grandsons.

"The reason most people haven't heard about this is because the world governments have been trying to keep this as quiet as possible. It would be hard to explain the ritualistic murder of schoolchildren, after all," Kaidoh continued on.

"Then why allow it at all?" Oishi demanded. "Even if they can't fight them, that doesn't mean they have to allow people into the school!"

Momo cocked his head. "And then what? Just allow these monsters to run rampant? The government needed to establish some means of control, and the best way to do so would be to go along with what Eden had created - they may lose hundreds of lives, but it wouldn't be thousands."

That's what it had all boiled down to in the end. Previous experience had taught the people in power that the only way to have some sort of control over the situation was to abide by it, and it was much easier to organize a culling of their population than try to defend the people from a species that didn't even observe the laws - both physical and political - of their world.

They had tried to give their children some fighting chance, only taking the brightest with the highest athletic ability. Some nations went a different route, sacrificing those they thought they could lose, while others heightened the standards so that the sacrifices would have some fighting chance.

"How can they be so sure they'll lose?" Kawamura asked.

"Because they've lost before," Echizen spoke up into Kaidoh's silence. "Every country where Tengoku Gakuen is staked has lost at least once before. Thousands of people killed by things no one could explain; after that, governments decided it was more important to keep a lid on things otherwise the panic would destroy their nation before Tengoku could."

"Are we not worth fighting for?" Oishi asked.

Momo laughed, short and bitter. "You're giving yourselves too much credit if you think they'll let a nation die for you."

"The alumni from this school are given special privileges in order to buy their silence, but also so that we can come together and work on a way to close this link once and for all," Kaidoh continued on. "Research has gone into figuring out how exactly the reality of Tengoku works, how their magic works, what the limitations are and who exactly comes from Eden."

"They couldn't just eradicate the school and be done with it?" Fuji asked, although from the tone of his voice, suggested he already knew the answer.

Kaidoh shook his head in answer. "Even in the extremely narrow chance a bomb would even detonate close enough to this school to demolish it, the link would not close; the school would merely rebuild itself, likely in minutes, so that its destruction would be a moot point. The US had tried something similar back in the 1940s."

Kikumaru huffed in irritation. "So you're saying we're trapped in a magic school, no one can do anything about it, and even if we do survive we can't tell anyone?"

"Got it in one!" Momo laughed.

"I don't quite understand," Oishi admitted. "If you already knew about all this before you entered, then why are you here?"

Kaidoh's answering look was patient; Momo's was cruel.

Inui shifted, the weight of his notebook feeling heavy in his hand. He'd already expected as such, to some extent, but having it validated left a bitter taste in his mouth. "You were trained, weren't you?" he asked for clarification.

"Only those up to a certain age can enter," Kaidoh replied, effectively answering that.

Momo laughed again. "At least they finally limited it to high schoolers. It used to be anyone under 18 for awhile," he said.

The idea of a grade schooler participating in something as brutal as the Hunt sent a cold spike into Tezuka's heart. They would have had far greater casualties - Tezuka didn't even want to think about it.

"We're trained from a young age to prepare for Tengoku," Kaidoh explained stiffly. "If we survive past graduation, we join the rest of the alumni in the research field."

Fuji glanced back at his roommate. "That explains some things," he admitted.

Momo followed his gaze, manic smile shrinking. "Echizen's the exception," he added. "He wasn't trained like the rest of us. He just came like that."

"We all have some sort of family connection to Tengoku," Echizen said, smirk tinged with a hint of smugness. Momo rolled his eyes at the gall but the meaning of the conversation was lost to their audience.

Kaidoh turned back to the whiteboard. "There are quite a number of students who were trained for Tengoku, and we dispersed to the dorms in a disparate manner so that we could have eyes and ears over as much of the campus as possible. Momoshirou and I are considered the leaders of the junior year division," He wrote his and Momo's name under the Seigaku label. "Sengoku is the leader of the seniors division, and Dan is the leader of the freshmen division."

At that, a palpable shock rippled through the seniors. "Dan?" Oishi echoed in confusion.

Kaidoh wrote the last two names under Yamabuki, straightening up to look back and lock eyes with Echizen.

"We said Echizen was an exception, didn't we?" Momo chortled.

"Ryuuzaki-sensei saw his name on the roster after the First Trial and had as many freshmen as she could transferred into Seigaku," Kaidoh further explained. "That's why we have so many freshmen."

"Ryuuzaki-sensei? The teachers are part of this too?" Oishi asked in confusion.

Kaidoh nodded. "Most of the teachers are alumni. Whatever 'Eden' considers private or restricted, it's either not here or buried somewhere deep in this school so that not even the staff can hope to find its whereabouts. Half the battle here is finding out who we're actually fighting."

Inui shifted uneasily. "If that's true, and the staff cannot even find out - what hope do the students have?"

"We have the Trials," Momo answered. "The stages of the Trials are also a part of Eden - and our powers are another tie to that place as well."

"We ourselves are part of the link," Kaidoh said. "The more we understand what that means, the better prepared we will be to fight back."

He turned back to the board, marking 'X's and 'O's for each dorm. "Currently, we have members in each Dorm but that does not mean we have actual control over that Dorm. The first trimester here at Tengoku is trying to establish some form of control in all the Dorms, so that we have a better chance at trying to find some way to break the link between our world and Eden."

"Usually this part goes pretty smooth," Momo added in. "But this year is the most chaotic to date with who ended up being enrolled."

Most of the Dorms had been marked with 'O's save three - Rikkai, Hyoutei, and St. Rudolph. Fuji stared at the last one especially hard, lead filling his stomach. "What's wrong with St. Rudolph?" he asked quietly.

"Each Dorm has an unofficial head, the one who holds the most power - if not physically, then at least socially," Kaidoh said. "If pressed, who would you say is Seigaku's unofficial head?"

No one said anything, but they didn't have to - everyone knew it was Echizen. Their dorm was populated mostly by freshmen, each one so loyal to Echizen that they hardly would greet any of the upper years, and not even the obstinate Arai would say anything rash in front of Seigaku's most terrifying freshman.

"Sengoku was able to claim dominance over Yamabuki, and Momoshirou struck an alliance with Fudoumine's Tachibana; we also have Shiraishi in Shitenhouji, Kajimoto in Jyousei Shounan, and what little is left in Midorigaoka falls under us and Sengoku. The problems lie in the remaining three dorms," Kaidoh explained.

"With their unofficial leaders?" Oishi clarified.

Kaidoh nodded. "Saint Rudolph's Mizuki Hajime, Hyoutei's Atobe Keigo, and Rikkai's Yukimura Seiichi," he listed clearly. "Thanks to Tezuka, Atobe seems open to an alliance despite his contempt for Echizen."

To the side, Echizen snorted, amused. It said a lot about his attitude that none of the seniors thought to ask exactly why Atobe held such a grudge against the younger boy. In retrospect - Echizen seemed to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

"Mizuki is a thorn in our side," Momo jumped in. "He's the son of another alumni, but the guy must have gone batshit crazy - seems to think Tengoku is the road to Heaven or something, claims passing the Trials is a way to go to Eden or Heaven or whatever."

"We think Mizuki must believe in his father's claims since he turned up here," Kaidoh said. "And if he really believes it, he might try to sabotage any of our plans if not outright attack us. We think the only reason he hasn't yet is because he needs to get his own little following; he's essentially closed off Saint Rudolph."

Fuji grew pale at the thought. Kikumaru reached a hand over to clasp with Fuji's, frowning in worry - if that was true, that meant Yuuta was caught in a fanatical faction's religious zeal. The thing was, Yuuta had not mentioned anything of the sort happening in his Dorm - which meant he either hadn't realized it himself or he was purposely hiding it from his older brother.

"And what about Rikkai?" Inui asked.

Kaidoh and Momo exchanged a look, clearly troubled. What was more troubling than a religious fanatic? Kawamura wondered.

"Yukimura Seiichi is...very different," Kaidoh started haltingly, but faltered when he became too hesitant to proceed.

"He's not human."

The seniors turned at Echizen's voice. The boy was looking at Kaidoh evenly, expression and tone equally dispassionate in the face of the juniors' flinching.

"Those from Eden don't always look like the beasts and monsters you see in Trials; for the most part, they look practically identical to humans," the boy explained candidly. "If they're cut, they bleed; if they're hit, they bruise; physically, there is not much difference."

There was a short moment as the seniors digested this.

"Yukimura is...from Eden?" Inui hedged out uncertainly.

"Not quite," Echizen shrugged. "His father was from Eden, as best as their intel can say - his mother was human."

"A demihuman," Kaidoh joined in. "Half-human, half-not."

"They're rare but not unheard of," Momo said. "Yukimura is one of the few that actually turned up at Tengoku, however. We don't know his goal but he has a chokehold on Rikkai; even our members in that Dorm can't guess what he's up to or why he turned up."

"Complications and divisions are fatal to strategies," Kaidoh added. "We need to either eliminate the threats these three pose or turn them to our side. Given Fuji-senpai's brother is involved, if you think you can help, it would be appreciated."

"What happens if they can't be turned to our side?" Tezuka asked, catching on the real crux of the matter.

Echizen smirked. "Kaidoh-senpai already said, didn't he? They will be eliminated."

Fuji startled, shooting to his feet in outrage. "You're going to kill them?" he demanded.

"...if we have to," Kaidoh admitted.

Momo didn't say anything, only smiled - the most damning statement of them all.

"And what of my brother? Yuuta doesn't know about any of this-"

"If you can keep your brother out of Mizuki's clutches, we don't much care about him one way or another," Momo interrupted brightly.

"Hey," Kawamura edged in chidingly.

"But if he falls in line with Mizuki and starts doing his bidding, he'll be considered part of the threat," Momo continued on easily.

Kaidoh snapped a glare over at Momo's blithe attitude. "We aren't just going to go in and cut the whole lot down. For now, we want alliances - the greater number of people we have helping us, the better chances of success. Fuji Yuuta, like you've said, walked into Tengoku unaware - getting slotted in Saint Rudolph was just another stroke of misfortune for him. We will not fault him for that."

Fuji digested that quietly; Kaidoh's calm and collected temperament about the situation was likely the only thing keeping the blue-eyed brunet from either tearing them to shreds or running to his brother's side.

"He's close to Mizuki," Momo pointed out.

Fuji pinned the younger boy with a threatening stare.

Kaidoh only nodded. "But family means so much more than friends," he said.

Echizen made a thoughtful noise, as if taken by surprise by the comment.

"We still have time. Fuji-senpai, if your brother will listen to you - talk to him. Chances are high Mizuki didn't come in here with a large following; as long as your brother can convince his dormmates not to follow along, the threat could be considered neutralized," Kaidoh suggested.

"And Mamushi doesn't want to get blood on his hands," Momo sniggered.

Kaidoh didn't react, only tensing slightly. He carefully avoided Momo's eyes but that was pointless from the start - Momo didn't even look over at him, instead focusing on the list of dorms idly.

"Currently, Saint Rudolph and Hyoutei are our priority," Kaidoh started abruptly. "We want their alliance. If you can help with that, we'll let the other members of our group know that you can be trusted."

"Are you asking us to join?" Kawamura asked in confusion.

Momo shrugged. "Pretty much. You don't have to, of course - but then you'll be cut out of the loop, and we won't spend that much time or energy trying to keep you alive. We don't have the resources to spend on that," he said.

"Is that what it comes down to - either join or die?" Fuji asked coldly.

From the look on the juniors' faces, that was the obvious bottom line. It was not hard to understand: if they didn't join, they would be considered as nothing more than collateral. They could fight and try as hard as they could, but if they ended up in a situation where any member of this group had to consider weighing the worth of their lives against the weight of another member's, it was obvious they would not be chosen.

But joining came with its own risks. While they may find better support and develop a deeper understanding of their circumstances, they would no longer be afforded the comforts of their own ignorance; if needed, they would be given orders they had to follow even if it posed a threat to their well-being. It was a trade-off: in order to get the support and understanding, they had to be willing to risk their own lives to complete the objective the group had set up.

They had not been trained for that. They had been ordinary students before they'd entered Tengoku - now they were being asked to become soldiers in a battle that was clearly becoming inevitable.

It just wasn't fair. They had been given no warning for what they would face, and now they faced the possibility that they would be killed because they tried to survive alone, or killed because they were trying to complete a mission.

"This is too cruel," Oishi said quietly. The others couldn't help but agree.

Echizen broke in, voice even, "If you think you're strong enough to survive on your own, then go ahead."

He rose then, moving to the front to stand adjacent to Fuji. "All they're doing is asking if you want to be a part of this plan or not," he said. "They don't owe you anything - they have been paying much steeper prices before you ever thought to walk through those doors."

Kaidoh, who had sacrificed a childhood to training in order to combat a threat that was near god-like; and Momo, who had sacrificed all that and more to be able to stand in this very room.

It had never been fair from the very start, for anyone.

"Join or don't. Fight or don't. Those have always been your choices," Echizen said. "So make one."

"Hey."

Sengoku looked up, grin growing at the sight that met his eyes: Osakada Tomoka, armed with a machine gun, glowering down at his slouched form. He was currently reclining along the edge of the fountain, having been people-watching for the past hour. Originally, he'd been waiting on word from Dan, who had disappeared somewhere with Akutsu Jin, but seeing the Seigaku girl before him put him in a good mood.

Mostly because she was so cute.

"Tomoka-chan," Sengoku greeted. "Always so good to see you~!"

Tomoka glared down at him. "Shut up. Your expression is really gross right now, too!"

"That's because I'm so happy to see you!"

Tomoka rolled her eyes. "I still can't believe they tagged you as senior leader," she grumbled.

"It's just my luck, eh~?" Sengoku winked, tone close to obnoxious.

"Message from Kaidoh-senpai," Tomoka began, voice lowering in volume but looking unimpressed anyway. "Tezuka's group is now officially accepted into our plans. They'll fall under Kaidoh-senpai's and Momo-senpai's watch though."

Sengoku cocked his head. He wasn't too surprised, all things considered; the Seigaku seniors were pretty well-known among their group for not only getting Momo's and Kaidoh's attention, but also Echizen's and Atobe's. It took a lot to catch Atobe's eye and Echizen's involvement; the latter was especially bizarre considering the subsequent events of the last Trial.

The tricky thing about involving the untrained was that they didn't react in the same way those of their group expected someone to react. Most of them had been trained since they were little to infiltrate Tengoku - Sengoku and Dan were such people. The organization they grew up in was not fond of sending in younger years, but didn't want to risk not having enough people inside - so the moment they were of age, they applied until they were either accepted or aged out.

Sengoku had passed for his senior year; Dan and Tomoka had passed for their first application. Sometimes, Sengoku wondered if it really was just the luck of the draw.

If he had been better, more vigilant - perhaps he could have saved his underclassmen. Somehow gotten them to fail during the application process, even if he was half-convinced Tengoku didn't actually look through their scores.

He couldn't save them all though, no matter how hard he'd tried to protect them. The mission was the mission, and they were all comrades meant to suffer for it. He would have given anything to save them but he was only one person - he hadn't been there to shelter Dan, hadn't been there to protect Tomoka, hadn't been there to save Momoshirou.

He was only here now, trapped in the limbo between their world and the next, fighting a battle where no one could clearly define an enemy. All he had was spite and luck, and only one of those had been branded onto his wrist as a weapon.

"So basically, they're under Echizen, right?" Sengoku asked. His tone was not kind.

Tomoka considered him, eyes cold. "We're still on the same side," she said.

"For now," Sengoku agreed. "At least until your little leader decides us humans aren't worth the fight."

Tomoka turned her back on him. For a fleeting moment, Sengoku knew he deserved it.

"Unlike you all, he was there," Tomoka murmured. "I'll take a monster over your shallow encouragements any day."

Spite, of course, was something they all shared.

Ryoma moved down the corridor silently, barely a shadow as it was treading along his path. Although the route was clear, he knew from the feel of the air around him that he drew closer and closer to restricted parts of the school; his skin was practically buzzing from the aura of growing closer and closer to his destination.

Katsuo, shuffling along just a step behind him, remained quiet. Ryoma could tell he was growing agitated by the air but still he said nothing; Katsuo wouldn't say anything, of course, because the ability to demand answers had been stripped from him the moment he'd met Ryoma's eyes on the first day.

Ryoma's hand landed on the door. Immediately, a bolt of black static shot out from the frame but could only connect with the air around his skin, dissipating with a crack that would have been snapped bones for any other student. Instead the door itself seemed to shudder, molding from wood to liquid rock; it fell away like starlight, as silent as Ryoma himself.

The lack of smell was damning in its own right. Such a grisly scene but no scent attached belied something inhuman. The bodies that littered the floor, however, were very much human; human flesh, human bone, human blood, human guts. They lay still, bodies locked forever in the embrace of death, but they did not rot.

On the other side of that doorway, standing center in a room full of corpses, stood the one Ryoma had been seeking. The young woman was pale, ghostly so but not unpleasant; her delicate features, wide eyes, and dark hair seemed to glow with an ethereal type of beauty.

She had already turned to see them as the door faded; her robes, decadent and colorful, hovered a scant millimeter above the ground so that the congealed blood and guts from the bodies she tread upon did not dirty her. She was smiling, pretty but vacant - a far cry from the woman he'd known when he'd first met her.

"So this is where you've been hiding," Echizen said, taking that first step in.

The woman's smile sharpened, rapier points, deadly and monstrous. It became not a smile but a bearing of teeth - animalistic and instinctual. Ryoma couldn't help but marvel at the change, because those of Eden would have never become something so bestial before.

"Welcome home," she greeted. Her tone was warm and kind, her expression was anything but. The contrast was not startling - Ryoma could attribute it to her being unused to the guise of a human being. Perhaps she hadn't worked out the way emotions and expressions run yet.

"This prison is no home of mine," Ryoma returned evenly. He'd stopped several steps in, mindful of the bodies. Human beings had a concern for death and their dead - it wouldn't do to give Katsuo a poor impression to follow.

The woman's eyes slid from him to Katsuo. The other boy had followed him inside, looking over the bodies but lacking the same concern that would have been present on anyone else in the school aside from them. Ryoma pretended not to notice; the woman couldn't help but do so.

"As usual, you show you have no limits," she observed, eyes on Katsuo but obviously addressing Ryoma. "What happened - did you get lonely and decide to make another Doll?"

Ryoma stared at her. "He is not a Doll," he replied slowly, icily. Glancing over his shoulder, he regarded the boy behind him with thoughtful eyes. "What's your name?"

Katsuo stared at him. If he could have been, he would have been confused by it. "Mizuno Katsuo," he answered after a moment.

The woman started laughing. "We both know that certainly isn't true!" she choked out between her guffaws.

Ryoma didn't reply. Katsuo couldn't hope to understand it even if he had.

"You voluntarily stepped back into this world, Ryoma-kun," the woman said, laughter dying off but smile never leaving her face. "Did you want to follow in Ryoga's footsteps that badly?"

Her robes fluttered over the face of a Midorigaoka freshman; the girl had been too slow in her escape from her classroom during the First Trial and had been torn apart by the beast. She, like the others in the room, would not decompose - not in this room, not in this plane. They could not even be honored in the way their world would have wanted them honored; their corpses were taken care of by those of Eden; the few who stayed in Tengoku and monitored the events, who cared little for the outside world and even less for the children they were killing. Ryoma moved closer to her, steps stained in the blood of the students scattered about the floor.

"You know better than anyone that I share little in common with him, Nanako."

A/N: ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(;￣▽￣)┘

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