Chaper 7 (March 1, 2010) (3,039 words)

The fact that Ayako seemed to be screaming indefatigably made it impossible for anyone to find out what the matter was. That coupled with the fact that she had disturbed every one of the peacefully slumbering bats gave the group great cause for concern concern. The bats flew around the place, adding their high-pitched screeching drowning Ayako’s screams, and those of everyone else, causing everyone to duck as the bats swooped low over their heads and out of sight. The guide dropped the flashlight in the confusion, and watched helplessly as it fell on the floor of the cave, the fast fading light illuminating the mossy pavement before dying altogether.

“This is bad,” said the guide when Ayako had ceased to scream and the bats had settled down elsewhere. “Without the flashlight, we…”

“We what?” asked Mitsui with an air of urgency. “Gosh, don’t tell me we’re all going to die here!”

“Relax,” said the voice of Maki somewhere in the darkness. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “We’ll find our way out somehow.”

“Somehow?” yelled Mitsui into the darkness. “What do you mean, somehow?”

Kogure, who happened to be standing right next to him, said petulantly, “Stop screaming into my ear.”

Mitsui ignored Kogure and went on.

“What do you mean, we’ll find our way out somehow? It’s a maze down here, and I’ve completely forgotten how we even reached this spot. Look around you. You can’t even see the light from the tunnel entrance from here. We’re doomed!”

“By the way,” said Maki offhandedly. “What was it that Ayako was screaming about?”

“Nothing,” said Ayako from a distant corner of the dark cave. “I stepped on something squishy, and it turned out that it was Captain Akagi’s foot.”

Everyone groaned in consternation. Akagi was grumbling darkly to himself.

“You do realize,” said Coach Taoka, making a great effort to stay calm, “that you’re the one who’s caused all this.”

From another corner, Miyagi shouted, “Don’t you dare talk to her like that!” It was the fact that Coach Taoka wouldn’t be able to locate him even if he wanted to that gave him the courage to say something like that.

“What!” said Coach Taoka. “Who said that?” He had evidently not recognized the voice. The repeated reverberations and echoes made it a trifle difficult to discern whose voice was whose.

“Well, yeah,” said Ayako. “You see, all this happened because of me, and—”

“It’s all right,” said Coach Taoka warmly. “I accept your apology.”

“I wasn’t going to apologize. What I was saying is that we never needed a flashlight to being with. The guide obviously knows his way around these parts, so he could take us to the other side, flashlight or no flashlight.”

“Are you out of your mind?” said Mitsui, almost hysterical. “Sure, the guide knows his way around, but what about us? How do you expect us to follow him when we can’t even see him? What if one of us falls into an endlessly deep hole while groping around in the darkness? Nobody’s ever going to find out they’re gone until everyone falls into a hole!”

“For someone who likes the dark as much you say you do, you sure are a scaredy-cat,” said Ayako coolly. “Worse than Jin, in fact.”

Somewhere in the darkness Jin was silently gloating over Mitsui’s humiliation. Serves you right for being mean to me, he said to himself.

“And anyway,” Ayako went on. “You don’t need to be able to see to be able to see.”

“Uh,” said Akagi. “Maybe I heard you wrong, Ayako, but for a moment I thought you were suggesting that we can see without being able to see.”

“You heard me right,” said Ayako. “We can see with our ears.”

Some passed this off as equally ridiculous to what she had said earlier; others actually understood what she meant and gave vent to long-drawn “Ohs”.

“So the guide is going to go ahead, and we’re going to follow the sound of his footsteps.”

“But what if we follow the sound of the wrong footsteps and crash into something?” asked Sendoh. “That would be bad.”

The guide spoke.

“Actually, what I wanted to suggest at the beginning was that without the flashlight we would have to feel our way out – by holding on to the railings.”

“Railings?” said Sakuragi. “What railings? Are you out of your mind?” He groped around in the dark for a while before his hand made contact with smooth, cool metal. “Oh!”

Kiyota let out a bark-like laugh.

“Stupid red monkey!”

“Stupid wild monkey!”

“Look at you Morons.”

“RUKAWA!”

“RUKAWA!”

“There are railings all along the length of the path,” explained the guide. “For an exigency such as this.”

“Well, why didn’t you say it before?” asked Coach Takato, groping his way to the nearest railing, knocking Hanagata’s glasses off when he bumped into him in the process. “Sorry, Hanagata,” he said, bending to pick them up. “Here.”

Hanagata let out a scream.

“Yeow!” he screamed. “It poked me in the eye!”

“Oops,” said Coach Takato, chuckling. “My mistake. It was Miyagi’s knife. Here, give it to me.” Then he bent down again and picked up Hanagata’s glasses. “There you go.”

“I was endeavoring to explain, sir,” said the tour guide. “But the gentleman who calls himself ‘Mitsui’ wouldn’t let me.”

“Mitsui!” said Coach Takato. “I’m disappointed in you! Wasting everyone’s time like this!”

Mitsui was about to retaliate angrily, but Ayako spoke.

“Drop it, Mitusi, or I’ll tell everyone about the locker room incident.”

Mitsui was silent.

“What’s the locker room incident?” asked Hikoichi, poised to write even though he could see neither his notebook nor his pen.

“Can’t tell you,” said Ayako gravely. “I swore not to tell. Rukawa didn’t though – you could ask him.”

“What’s the locker room incident?” asked Hikoichi, turning to where he thought Rukawa would be – that is, in the direction that seemed the quietest.

“Mitsui opened the wrong locker once and—”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” yelled Mitsui pleadingly. “Don’t go any further, please!”

Rukawa shrugged in the darkness. He was happy to accept any excuse to remain silent, although he wasn’t too sure what made him talk in the first place. Maybe it was the fact that the incident had been particularly amusing.

“Now,” said the guide. “Has everyone found the railing?”

“Oh, wait, just a moment,” said Mitsui, hastening to find the railing.

“Ouch,” said Sendoh. “You stepped on my foot.”

Mitsui laughed sheepishly.

“Sorry, Sendoh,” he said. “Well, at least I didn’t scream – unlike somebody here.” He wouldn’t let Ayako have her way that easily.

Ayako sighed condescendingly.

“Boys,” she said, shaking her head.

“Is everyone ready?” asked the guide. “Now you may begin to walk – slowly, so that you do not bump into those in front of you. When I say ‘stairs’, look for steps with your feet before continuing to walk. If everything goes well, we should be able to make it out of this tunnel uninjured.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jin. The effects of his triumph over Mitsui had worn off.

“Nothing. And now we commence walking.”

Now that everyone’s eyes had adapted to the darkness, they realized that the cave wasn’t completely dark after all. The minerals in the walls of the caves, the stalactites that hung from the roof, had an eerily phosphorescent quality that made them glow a faint green. It only made the place seem eerier. The sound of the occasional drop of water falling into a puddle somewhere elicited gasps from one or two people, who couldn’t get over the fact that the cave was a lot larger than the word “tunnel” suggested, and the feeling that they were being watched.

Kogure was the first to put this nebulous feeling into words.

“Guys, what if the Headless Ghost is watching us?” He sounded hopeful more than apprehensive.

“Are you for real?” said Uozumi.

“Do us all a favor and shut up, Kogure,” said Akagi.

“Sh!” said Takano. “What’s that sound?”

“It’s Jin’s teeth,” said Nagano. “They’re chattering.”

“Oh, Jin,” said Ayako sympathetically, and Miyagi once again got the impression that she had eyes for every boy in their group except him, and debated on asking Coach Takato for the butter knife.

Except for the fact that Sakuragi tripped occasionally and blamed Kiyota, and that Kiyota tripped occasionally and blamed Sakuragi, the journey down the tunnel was rather uneventful.

“Now we take the stairs up to the exit – that light you see way up there,” said the guide.

“I wonder what people did before they built these stairs,” said Fujima. “And boy, am I glad they built them.”

“Why?” asked Sendoh out of genuine curiosity. He had a penchant for knowing what how his seniors dealt with life – that way, he would be ready for what would hit him when he became a third-year student.

Fujima shuddered.

“We would obviously have to climb our way out,” he said. “Can you imagine what that would do to our hands?”

Sendoh glanced down at his, and when he realized he couldn’t see them, decided not to form an opinion.

“I would advise you to watch your step,” said the guide, beginning the ascent. “The steps are quite high. And in order to obviate any risk of injury, might I tell you in advance that there are exactly fifty-three steps?”

The climb was a tiring one. Gravity seemed to be working extra hard to pull them down into the darkness below.

“Man,” said Mitsui, panting. “These steps are weird. They’re sloping downward. This is disorienting.”

“That’s right,” said Akagi. “It’s to prevent rainwater from stagnating on the steps. People could slip.”

“I’m slipping already.”

“Watch your step, Mitsui,” said Ayako with specious, almost mocking solicitousness. “You wouldn’t want to fall down and hurt yourself, would you? Because then we’d have to leave you here all by yourself – in the dark. But you like the dark, don’t you, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Mitsui muttered something under his breath.

Only Miyagi heard it. It must have been offensive, because a moment later Mitsui yelled out in pain: “YEOW!” He swore and frantically shook his wounded hand in a desperate attempt at assuaging the pain. “Why the heck did you do that?”

Miyagi quietly stowed away his spare butter knife – a job well done. He had made a mental note when he purloined the second knife not to use it unless absolutely necessary.

“You were saying things,” he said, “about Ayako.”

Ayako was thoroughly impressed by this display of genuine devotion.

“Oh, Ryota, you did that for me?”

“Yup,” said Miyagi, a lot livelier all of a sudden: Ayako had spoken to him!

“That was really nice of you.”

“Nice?” said Mitsui incredulously. “You call that nice? What kind of a person calls violence nice?”

“Someone who has been insulted,” said Ayako simply. Then she went on to add, “By a lout like you.”

“What!” said Mitsui. Flashes of his older self began appearing in his face, which was contorted by the one emotion that he thought he had seen the last of when he returned to the team, the one that he would never have dreamed to register against a girl – hatred. And not just innocuous, pointless hatred, but malice reinforced by an overwhelming desire to destroy something.

He lunged at Ayako, aiming to throw himself bodily onto her.

Ayako calmly stepped back.

Mitsui fell flat on the ground.

“Ouch.”

“I think,” said Ayako, “that you have learned your lesson: Never try to pick on a girl.”

“And you,” said Mitsui, grumbling as he stood up, “had better learn to respect your seniors.”

Ayako said nothing.

“You’re the one who started it, Mitsui,” said Kogure. “You shouldn’t have tried to take advantage of her – not in a place like this.”

Haruko clasped her hands over her mouth.

“Oh my goodness!” she said incoherently. “How horrible!”

“That was a very unmanly thing to do,” said Maki disapprovingly. “Very unmanly indeed. I should have known you were an indecent – what did Ayako call you again? – yeah, a lout. An incorrigibly indecent lout.”

“And to think that you laughed at me,” said Jin, making a valiant attempt at sounding sardonic.

A moment of silence ensued.

“Uh… No, Jin,” said Maki slowly. “He would have laughed at you anyway. Same with the rest of us. No offense.”

Another moment of silence ensued.

Coach Takato was the one to break it.

“Oh, look everybody! We’re at the exit already. Now wasn’t that quick?” It wasn’t. “Well at least we had fun.” Nobody really had much fun. “And there’s the palace.”

And there it was, in its full derelict glory, the once-ornate pillars and gables now a relic of a dead age. The palace itself was not particularly large – since building a large palace on a hill would have been a singularly exacting task, not to mention impossible if one aimed at inconspicuousness – but it held about it an air of regality. It stood majestically, as if defying Time with its last bit of strength, refusing to give in without a fight, its age and its crumbling façade painting a picture of how rich its history was, how many emperors, now all dead and gone, had sought respite in its rooms in now forgotten summers. The few tourists who were there seemed to denigrate the landscape.

Those were Coach Takato’s words upon exiting the tunnel.

Coach Taoka, not to be outdone by his rival, added, “It’s an awesome place.”

Both coaches were ignored.

“I’m hungry,” complained Sakuragi, looking around for that beneficent somebody who would smilingly offer him food upon hearing this statement.

“Shut up, Sakuragi,” snapped Akagi in irritation. “You should have eaten properly at breakfast.”

“But I did,” protested Sakuragi. “I’m just… hungry again.”

“I can help you with that,” said Maki. “Stick out your tongue and punch yourself in the gut really hard. And if that doesn’t do the trick, then you should jump up and down on the spot, saying, ‘I am not hungry anymore!’ as loudly as you can.”

Sakuragi went through the drill, eliciting well-concealed, and in many case ill-concealed, laughter from all of the bystanders. Even Rukawa, who would have normally been mordant in expressing his disgust, tacitly appreciated the hilariousness of the situation.

“Old man,” said Sakuragi, panting, but persevering obliviously in making a fool of himself. “It’s not working.”

“Give it some time,” said Maki, who was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

“Guys, you’re being mean to him,” said Haruko, who was the only person in the group – apart from maybe Coach Anzai – who genuinely didn’t enjoy watching people make Sakuragi look like an idiot.

“Are you kidding me?” asked Kiyota through a fit of laughter. He was enjoying it the most. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened on this trip.”

“It’s still not working!” said Sakuragi. “In fact, I feel even hungrier.”

“All right,” said Uozumi. “If that isn’t working, then I know something that will work. Squat You need to squat on your haunches and start jumping on the spot like a frog.”

This Sakuragi did, much to the amusement of everyone present.

When the joke finally lost its initial charm, Maki said, “Okay, Sakuragi, you can stop doing that now.”

Sakuragi rose, panting.

“Boy, I’m even hungrier than before.”

“Yes,” said Maki. “I know.”

“What!” said Sakuragi in indignation. “You set me up!”

“No, I didn’t,” said Maki.

“Oh yes, he did,” said Fujima. “He set you up in the worst way imaginable. Sakuragi, do you realize that he made you look like a complete idiot in front of the rest of us?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Sakuragi – until that point. Confusion gave way to even more confusion, which finally dissolved in anger.

“I’M GONNA MAKE YOU PAY FOR THAT!” he yelled, making a dash in Maki’s direction.

Maki, being the best point guard in Kanagawa, was a lot lither than Sakuragi. The redhead just couldn’t catch him.

After a while he got tired of chasing Maki around.

“Look, old man,” said Sakuragi in the way of seeking a compromise. “Let’s all be nice to each other, okay?”

“Sure.”

And the fight was settled once and for all.

“But seriously, Maki, that was an awesome practical joke,” said Sendoh. “Wouldn’t you agree, Rukawa?”

Rukawa nodded.

“RUKAWA!” yelled Sakuragi.

“Shut up!” yelled Akagi. “Don’t you people realize that everyone’s watching us?”

“Who’s everyone?” asked Mitsui curiously, looking around and employing his transcendental math skills to deduce that there were exactly three people, including an old man who looked too old to be aware of his own existence, who were not part of their group. “I only see three people. How does that make much of a difference?”

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Coach Anzai. “It does. You see, that old man over there is the president of the Winter Tournament. You wouldn’t want him to get an unfavorable impression of your schools, now, would you, boys? You would probably not even be eligible for the Winter Games.”

This made everyone go pale.

“You know,” said Maki a little shakily, shrinking from the penetrating glare Coach Takato was directing in his direction. “I’m going to go have a little talk with that guy. This is all a big misunderstanding.”

“Me, too,” said Akagi.

“Me, too,” said Uozumi.

“Me, too,” said Fujima.

“I hope all goes well,” said Sendoh.

When the four captains returned, the bemused expression on their faces seemed to say that all didn’t go well.

“What happened?” demanded Coach Taoka.

“Well, you see…” said Uozumi.

“He’s blind,” said Akagi.

“And he uses a hearing aid,” said Maki.

“So he couldn’t possibly have seen or heard what just happened here,” finished Fujima.

A sigh of relief was pretty much expected.

But at this point Kogure started cackling maniacally.

“What is it?” asked Akagi.

“Look, it’s the gardener!” said Kogure. “And the pickax isn’t in my backpack!”

He was pointing at a fourth figure outside their group that had manifested itself in the palace grounds. It wore a red cap and held a pickax – the one that Kogure had in his backpack on the way to the waterfall.