Standard disclaimer applies.

Thank you to for the kind review, and because you asked nicely, here’s the next and final part. Hope you enjoy the story and ROOKIES! Introducing another fan to the great series is always a good thing.

Part II: They faced down the beast and lived to talk about it.

“Yagi!”

“What happened?!”

“TOUKO-CHAN!”

Ren and Yamato walked down the last step and entered through the metal gates surrounding the playing field. Yagi Touko was standing silently just up a head with a herd of baseball-uniform clad boys rushing up towards her.

“What happened?” asked one of the boys as he looked over the girl before him; the scratches and bruises on her legs and the unfamiliar coat she wore; the shiny purple insides contrasting sharply with the jacket’s dark material. His dark bangs fell across his face, hiding his eyes from view.

From the aura surrounding him alone, Ren and Yamato concluded that this wasn’t a person to be reckoned with. Of course, the tall, mean looking blonde guys standing just behind him didn’t help with the welcoming factor. Especially with him looking so vicious and strong and his sharp eyes finding the two unfamiliar hangers-on standing just a distance away.

“TOUKO-CHAN!” Bellowed a second guy. He looked pretty dumb. Strong, but dumb. The dumb factor made both boys wonder if he were related to Sawatari. The awful haircut didn’t help either.

“Yagi!” a mousy boy, a dreadlocked boy and another one who looked as much like a cat as Kura did a puppy, called at the same time.

“Who did this?” asked two who looked like old-school Bōsōzoku gang members.

“Kawato!” called one of the last boys, his Mohawk almost defying gravity and looking as much like a weapon as the baseball bat in the hand of the quiet boy with the center-parting and bleached bangs behind him.

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” said Ren as if he were reading from a cue-card in Yamato’s brain.

“Maybe if we backed away slowly, they wouldn’t even notice we were here.”

Both of them weren’t cowards, not at all, but were neither stupid nor did they have a death wish. It was the wise words of Kenny Rogers that said; ‘Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.’

“Was it those guys?”

Yes, it was these guys. That’s why we volunteered to walk her all the way back to school.

“Know when to fold ‘em, Yamato?”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.”

Ren and Yamato were about three steps away from turning on their heels and taking off like a couple of bats out of hell.

“No! Not at all. They…They saved me,” she said, just in time to halt Ren and Yamato’s survival instincts from kicking in. “This…is his jacket. Kazama-kun,” she called, turning around and running back to where they stood.

Ren swallowed but was forced a step forward by Yamato’s hand on his back.

“Be a man, Ren,” said Yamato. It was obvious that he was trying, but failing to suppress a smirk.

“You should talk, hankie-boy.”

“Asshole.”

“Idiot.”

“Kazama-kun, Ogata-kun,” Yagi Touko called, jogging to a halt in front of him. She gave them both an encouraging smile and beckoned them forward. “They don’t bite…well, not always,” she said of the baseball team.

“Encouraging,” said Ren cynically.

“You have experience with puppies, so go ahead.”

“Yeah but I don’t have a handkerchief to dress my wounds with if it bites me.”

“Why don’t you use the extra material in your jacket then? Why did you do? Steal one of your sister’s party dresses?”

“No, I raided your closet while you were out at the spa, exfoliating.”

“You’re one to talk about exfoliating, Ren. Half the guys at school aren’t sure if you’re a guy or a girl and the other half are crushing on you regardless.”

“Why, we aren’t jealous now are we? Maybe if you spent less time embroidering your mothers’ kitchen towels you’d…”

In the short time they’d spent arguing like a couple of grade school girls, the entire Futagotamagawa baseball had closed in on them. Now they couldn’t run even if they wanted. At least, not unscathed. Especially with the tall scary blonde and the short scary black-haired guy standing between them and the exit.

“Guys, play nice,” said Yagi Touko. She moved forward and stood like a barrier between them and the blonde guy. “Shinjo-san,” she said softly.

“They didn’t hurt you?” the tall, fierce looking blonde called Shinjo asked; eyes unblinking from where they were trained on the two strangers. He was like a predator. Ren and Yamato suddenly knew how it felt like to be a worm looking at the pointy end of a fish hook.

“No. They saved me. If they hadn’t come along then I don’t know what would have happened. And…he found my shoe,” she said, looking at Yamato.

Ren snorted in laughter.

“Shut up, asshole.”

“Then who?” asked the other ferocious guy.

“Kei-chan,” said Yagi Touko. Her eyes changed when she looked at him. There was something unexplainable in her eyes as she gazed at the guy indentified at Kei-chan.

“Aniya,” said Shinjo, looking at Kei-chan.

Ren and Yamato identified him as Aniya and thought it was more appropriate to refer to him as that.

“Who?”

“I…I don’t know. They were just three big guys. In the alley behind the Fujiwara-san’s fish shop.”

“They looked like the Three Bears,” added Yamato before he could stop himself.

“Thank you, Hans Christian Anderson.”

“Asshole.”

“YAGI!” a loud voice bellowed from the dug-out and a man, obviously their teacher from his age, obviously the previously mentioned Kawato from the aura of utter eccentricity that shone off him like a beacon, came scurrying up. “What happened?! Are you hurt?! How could this have happened?! I knew I should have gone to look for you when you didn’t show up on time! Yagi!” he lunged forward and grabbed her by the upper arms.

“Yamaguchi doppelganger?” suggested Yamato.

“No doubt about it. Freaky.”

“What did you say?” Mohawk said threateningly, taking a step forward. His eyes narrowed and teeth bared.

He looked threatening, but so did everyone Ren ever face in his life. And standing next to Shinjo and the Aniya guy, this one looked positively cuddly.

“Doppelganger,” said Ren as a matter of fact. “It’s in the dictionary. Look it up.”

“Son of a bitch,” Growled Mohawk.

“Sekikawa!”

“Sensei’s right, Sekikawa,” said Mousy. “They didn’t come here to fight.”

“Stop ass-kissing, Mikoshiba. I don’t like the look of this guy.”

Bōsōzoku guy number one burst into laughter. “He’s prettier than you, Sekikawa. I’d rather look at his face for the rest of the day than stare at your mug!”

“Wakana!”

“I dare say he’s prettier than most of the girls in this school. Eh, Hiyama?” Bōsōzoku One said to Bōsōzoku Two, who came up behind him and clapped him on the shoulder, still laughing.

“Come on you guys. We’re a team, nya,” said Hello Kitty.

“Save it, Yufune. You know that it’s useless. These guys are beyond reasoning,” Dreadlocks interjected.

“But, Okada…”

“TOUKO-CHAN!” bellowed Sawatari Jr., about to rush towards Yagi Touko and crush her in a bear hug before Center Parting grabbed him around the waist in mid step.

“Hirachi!”

“Get him out of here, Imaoka,” said Shinjo finally and all arguments stopped immediately.

Ren and Yamato took a mental time out to collect their thoughts. They deducted that that;

Mohawk: Sekikawa. Mousy: Mikoshiba. Bōsōzoku One: Wakana. Bōsōzoku Two: Hiyama. Hello Kitty: Yufune. Dreadlocks: Okada. Sawatari Jr.: …Hirachi? Center Parting: Imaoka. Aniya: Dangerous. Shinjo: Scaaaaary.

It was a fine team they made, these guys. Sawatari would have a fun time trying to control them. Ren and Yamato would give him about ten minutes before he officially turned in his resignation letter.

‘My precious students.’

There was an ethereal voice and Ren felt a chill run through his spine. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t hear when Yagi and Yamato both called his name or when Yamato placed a hand on his shoulder to shake him out of his stupor.

“You guys scared him into a coma, nya!” said Yufune.

Yamato actually preferred Hello Kitty and decided to continue referring to him as that.

“You guys scared him into a coma, nya!” said Hello Kitty.

“Don’t look at us. Shinjo was the one staring the life out of him,” laughed Wakana. Evidently, he thought that it was going to be another boring day at school.

“Don’t involve me in your stupidity,” said Shinjo dismissively.

‘How dare you skip school like this?!’

Said the corporeal voice again and Ren felt his heart skip a beat.

“Ren!” called Yamato. “What the hell are you doing, you asshole?” He slapped him once across the face. But that didn’t rouse him. Instead, if it were possible, Ren looked even more lost to the world.

“We’re not going to be blamed if he forever comatose like this…are we?” asked Okada, looking faintly worried as he lowered his head to look directly into Ren’s blank eyes.

“Hey! Are you okay…err, boy,” asked Kawato, turning his full attention to the unresponsive teen before him.

“Kazama,” said Yamato before resuming his attempt to shake consciousness back into his friend. “Hey, Ren! What the hell, man? Ren!”

“Shit, and to think that I almost skipped school today,” said Hiyama to Wakana. Both broke into another round of laughter.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” said Aniya to Yagi Touko, appraising her up and down again as if to make sure no other injury had popped up in the time she’d been standing there.

“I’m fine, Kei-chan. I’m touched that you’re so worried.”

“…Idiot. Of course! We still haven’t done it yet and—” she slapped him on the arm and stopped whatever it is he was about to say. But she had a smile on her face and so did he. “And these guys…are you sure? Because they seem pretty weird—”

“They’re great guys. You just don’t know them yet.”

“Oh, and you do?”

Yagi Touko harrumphed.

“Ren! You still haven’t told me what the hell we’re doing here?! Yamaguchi is going to—”

“Yankumi!” yelled Ren suddenly and with such ferocity that the three people closest to him jumped back a step.

He snapped immediately out the daze that had been holding him for the past five minutes, looking around wildly as if some flesh eating monster was about to pop up out of the bush and eat them all.

“What the hell?”

“You didn’t tell Honjo or Kamiya where we were going right?”

“I’m getting tired of repeating myself,” sighed Yamato. “I. Don’t. Know. Where. We. Are. Or. What. We’re. Doing. Here!”

“Then what about the map?” said Ren, either not noticing Yamato’s annoyance, just deciding to be a complete ass about it.

Yamato was on the verge of a major headache and he was hungry. A hungry Ogata never made good company. “I don’t know anything about a map.”

“Then that means that I left it in Kura’s bag. The map of our destination. And if Yankumi finds it…she will find it…” he cast a haunted look at Yamato.

Realization dawned on him at that instance. “She’ll break him to find it, but once she does…” he returned Ren’s troubled gaze.

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” demanded Sekikawa, circling the two new guys like a vulture.

“These guys aren’t normal,” sighed Aniya, running a finger through his hair.

“Are you being pursued? By gangsters?!” Kawato was flabbergasted, looking worriedly between the two silent teens.

“Ren…”

“Yamato…”

At that moment, there was a change in the wind and a familiar, irritated coupled with aggravated voice came floating into hearing range.

“You guys…”

It growled menacingly.

Ren and Yamato gulped, and simultaneously turned to look at the top of the staircase leading to the playing field. There she stood, like an Avenging Angel (or the Grim Reaper), her pony tails waving in the wind. The glare of the sun reflecting in on the metal frames of her spectacles. Her immaculate white jersey a stark contrast to the dark expression on her face.

Yankumi was there…and it looked like she brought Hell along with her.

“It just keeps getting better and better. Should have brought popcorn,” said Wakana. He and Hiyama were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Sekikawa wasn’t sure whether to look at the furious woman standing just beyond the border of the field, or at the two utterly gobsmacked guys beside him.

Mikoshiba looked worried. Okada looked indifferent as usual, only slightly more amused. Hello Kitty went ‘Nya’. Imaoka had dragged Hirachi (coming to think of it, Yamato liked Sawatari Jr. better) Imaoka dragged Sawatari Jr. all the way across the field, where his woeful cry of “Touko-chan!” could still be heard rumbling. Aniya and Shinjo shared a look. It was a look that confirmed both guys’ suspicion that they were not, in fact, the weirdest school in Japan.

“What’s going on?” Asked Yagi Touko, looking worriedly between Ren and Yamato. “Are you okay?”

“If we run now, we might have a head start,” Ren whispered to Yamato.

“Um,” said Yamato. He didn’t dare nod, lest it provoke the beast that was Yankumi.

“On three…”

“Um.”

“…Three!”

With that Ren and Yamato turned on their heels and ran further into the field area and away from Yankumi, indirectly boxing themselves in.

“YOU GUYS!” Roared Yankumi, leaping down the stairs three steps at a time and sprinted across the field in pursuit of her wayward students. “How dare you skip school and make Kuraki and Ichimura lie for you!”

Ren and Yamato ran for their lived, but made a minor mistake in their calculation. They stopped just in time to prevent their face from being permanently imprinted with the metal gate designs. There was no escaping Yankumi. It was closed of metal all around and what exit was in sight was blocked by Shinjo’s impressive, towering form.

“It was all Ren!” said Yamato.

“Traitor!” growled Ren, shoving Yamato on the arm, causing him to stumble slightly.

“I told you you’re going to have to take the fall!”

“You’re the one who took the first steps into the school!”

“YOU GUYS!”

“Besides, what the hell are you doing here anyway!? Shouldn’t you be more worried about being an unmarried, middle aged woman then about us skipping day or two off school?” said Ren and Yamato blanched.

“Not a good idea to aggravate the pissed-off teacher, Ren.”

“Oh, man,” gasped Wakana between bouts of air, “This is priceless.” He and Hiyama were actually the only thing preventing the other from dropping to the ground.

Kawato was impressed to say the least. Not only had the three been going at it for a good three minutes, four laps easy around the field, they had been doing it while talking. Their stamina was incredible.

“What school did they say they were from?” asked Shinjo.

“Umm…Akadou, I think it was.”

“Have you heard of it, Aniya?”

Aniya shook his head, but kept his eyes trained on the two guys and the woman.

Akadou…

He was going to have to look into that.

Halfway into their sixth lap, Ren got an epiphany. He looked at his watch, smirked and slowed down to a jog before stopping completely right in front of the Futagotamagawa students. Yamato’s incredulous form halting a foot beside him.

“What the hell are you doing, idiot!”

“Shut up.”

“Kazama! Ogata!” roared Yankumi.

She was ten meters away and steaming at the ears.

Ren didn’t drop his superior smirk, instead, it grew cockier.

Yankumi was five meters away when the school bell rang, signalling the end of the school session.

“Too late, Yankumi. School’s out. You can’t do anything to us now.”

Yankumi glared at him, but stopped just a meter in front.

Standing still, Yankumi was even shorter in stature than they thought. Especially standing next to Kazama, who was the second tallest person there after Shinjo.

“Is there a reason you skipped school today to travel all the way here?”

“There is actually,” said Ren smugly.

Yamato thought that this time he’d finally get some answers.

So he waited and Yankumi waited and the Futagotamagawa Gakuen students waited.

And Ren said; “Because I got bored,” as if it provided a plausibly answer to the question.

“Kazama…”

“But why here?!” demanded Yamato. Startling Yankumi with his raised voice.

Ren shrugged nonchalantly. All the fear and anxiety was gone from him. He’d gone from being the teen on the brink of a shock induced coma, to terrified and back to the petulant two year old he usually was, all within the span of ten minutes. “I closed my eyes and pointed to a place on the map.”

“…That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it. Why, disappointed? Did you think I came here to tie off lose ends on a deal with the Yakuza drug lord? Some sick BDSM fetish?” he scoffed, “You’re the one with the blue handkerchief, Yamato, not me.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I know,” he chuckled. “But you’re an idiot.”

“I’m leaving.”

“What a coincidence. Me too. I bet Kura, Icchi, Kamiya and Honjo are just dying to get their hands on the latest gossip.”

“I hate you.”

“You should keep the handkerchief,” Ren said to Yagi Touko. “It’s custom, hand-embroidered. One of a kind. One day when this guy becomes a famous detective like Holmes, you can sell it for a fortune.”

Yamato knew that it was high time that he learned the fine arts of not speaking his thoughts aloud.

“If you think I’m just letting this go, then you’ve got another thing coming,” said Yankumi menacingly. “High school education is important! Think of your future. There will come a day when you’ll look back on your teen years and regret to enjoying to the max. This is a time to teach each other and learn from each other. Your precious friends have a lot to give and you have a lot to give back—”

“We’ll, you’re here safe and sound. We better take our leave now,” said Ren to Yagi Touko. “Justice has been served.”

“—Your friends look to you two as their leaders for guidance. You cannot just abandon them in a time where they need you the most—”

“Thank you again. Thank you so much,” Yagi Touko said, looking at the woman giving the impassioned speech but being completely ignored. She had her back to them and didn’t seem to realize. There was a moment’s pause as he decided her next course of action. She stepped forward, standing on her toes and gave both Ren and Yamato a quick hug.

Somewhere across the field, there came a wail of utmost sorrow.

“Hey, sorry about before,” said Aniya from his place. “But thanks.”

“Yeah,” replied Yamato.

“No problem,” added Ren.

“—In this life, you only live once. So use that opportunity wisely, but most of all, use it. Don’t let the flame of your youth wither away and die!—”

Ren and Yamato both knew that it was useless trying to cut off Yankumi when she was giving one of her speeches so they didn’t even try.

Ren raised one hand in departure and he walked out as Yamato turned to bid farewell to Mousy, Dreadlocks and Hello Kitty.

“What did you call us?”

Yes, Yamato was going to enroll in the ‘Separating Thought and Speech Seminar for Idiots’ immediately once he got home.

He wisely made his exit.

The Futagotamagawa students watched as the two Akadou teens walked away. They disappeared around the bend just as Yagi came to her senses and called out; “What about your jacket?” but it was too late.

Wakana and Hiyama, still enjoying their day, shouted; “Come back anytime!”

And Yankumi…

“—So stand up, my precious students! Stand up and state your place in this world. You are unique. Never let anyone tell you that you can be replaced. Each and everyone of you are special and that’s why, my precious students. I cherish the time I spent as your homeroom teacher.”

Yankumi ended with a hand clutching at the front of her shirt, eyes closed and the sound of choked sobs and applause in her ear.

She turned with a smile, that quickly vanished when the person who stood before her turned out not to be either Kazama or Ogata, but the thirty-something man she assumed was their teacher.

“Sensei!” said Kawato, tears streaming down his face. “That was…that was just beautiful. Such a caring and impassioned teacher is hard to find in this day and age. But you…you, a teacher after my own heart. You’ve touched me! ‘Stand up and state your place in this world. You are unique. Never let anyone tell you that you can be replaced!’ By…Err.”

“Yamaguchi Kumiko,” Yankumi grinned bashfully.

“By Yamaguchi Kumiko!” Kawato grinned. “I’m Kawato Koichi. Pleased to meet you!”

“And you.”

“Oi, oi, oi. Now this is just sickening!” Wakana made heaving motions. He threw a baleful glare at the two adults before leaving. By this time, most of the players had left the field, Shinjo and Aniya at the very front.

“Haa! Kazama? Ogata? Those brats!”

“Heeeeey! Wait for me! Uhh, Yamaguchi-sensei. Err, it was nice meeting your,” he grinned.

“You too, Kawato-sensei.”

“Hope we can do this again sometime.”

“Um. Sometime,” said Yankumi, finger twirling her pony tail in a way that one assumes to be seductively.

“Yeah! I look forward to it. Now we must guide out students so that their dreams may flourish into tomorrow!”

Any romantic atmosphere was immediately spoiled when eight pairs of gloves hit Kawato in the back (Sawatari Jr. was still reeling and Imaoka was keeping him company.)

And so ended Ren and Yamato’s great, thrill and excitement filled adventure that day. They rescued the damsel (after she’d clobber the bears’ gonads to mush with her knee.) They faced down the ferocious dragon and the dangerous panther guarding the castle. They defeated illness and loss of will and in the end, they conquered the beast.

The beast that goes by the name of Yankumi.

But at every end, there is only a beginning. A beginning with two headed monsters called Sawatari-Yankumi. A beginning with a dungeon full of brain eating parasites, waiting for you to let your guard down before they strike. A beginning with the living nightmare someone had named: School.

That beginning was called…

…tomorrow.

The end.

Yes, I adjusted the baseball practice hours/school hours to satisfy my needs! I did it all and there’s nothing you can do about it, because that’s it. I planned this to be at least semi-dramatic, especially with Touko and Aniya and what happened. But my traitorous brain and fingers refused to cooperate with my planning. So everything ended up being mainly humour.

I enjoyed writing the previous chapter, but I had an absolute blast writing this one, especially in Yamato’s semi-POV. So much that I’m considering writing more for this crossover series.

Hope you have as much enjoyment reading this as I had writing it!

Note: If you’re wondering about Ren’s reference about Yamato’s blue hankie. Blue handkerchiefs is a coded way of stating one person’s sexual preference when stepping into a BDSM/Gay bar. Look it up.

Thank you for reading and reviewing.

Love,

Reiven.