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tanithryudoI'm... er... almost somewhat embarrassed that I actually wrote this out. But my muses just wouldn't shut up about it until I wrote everything up.
Unfortunately, it's a scene that's smack in the middle of the side-story/xover thing that![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
cashew and I were talking about earlier. So without the complicated setup before, the content of the story as in why's what happening is probably going to be incomprehensible to anyone else. Oh well. Read at your own risk.
Scene: The Sorting
Series: The Psidai/GATE/HP/Etc. xover/sidestory series...thing.
Fandom: Prince of Tennis, GATE, Harry Potter
Rating: PG for language
Warnings: Crack. Randomness. HP-bashing, sort of.
Word Count: 5803
~~~
“Akutagawa, Jiroh!”
There was a brief pause, followed by a loud buzz and a yelp of pain.
“Ack! I’m going already, Atobe! Stop shocking me!” A brown haired boy darted out from the Psidai ranks and down the Great Hall.
There was a low murmuring from among his peers.
“You mean he still has that thing?” Momo hissed in what was supposed to be a whisper.
“Wow, Atobe-san sure is harsh,” added Kentaro.
“It’s effective though,” Yanagi grinned.
“I’m more interested in how he got it to work in Hogwart’s anti-technology zone,” Inui added.
The various Hogwarts children stared in unease. Just what kind of people were in this abroad program anyways?
“This Atobe guy must be a Slytherin,” muttered Ron.
“Ron!” Hermione admonished.
Meanwhile, Jiroh had jammed the Sorting Hat onto his head. There was a short pause while the hat dug through his mind.
“Ravenclaw!”
There was a light buzz from the Ravenclaw table as Jiroh joined them. Welcomes were cautiously extended, though they were answered by the sound of light snores. Jiroh had fallen asleep the moment he’d sat down, much to everyone’s chagrin.
“Atobe, Keigo!”
Everyone’s attention was immediately drawn back to the arrogant looking young man who sauntered up to the hat. Atobe stopped right before the chair and looked down his nose at the shoddy Sorting Hat in distaste.
“You really don’t expect to put that… thing… on ore-sama’s beautiful head, do you?”
A few of the younger years tittered at the use of “beautiful” by a boy, but nervously trailed off when they realized that Atobe was being perfectly serious.
McGonagall cleared her throat. “I’m afraid you must, Mr. Atobe. You must be sorted into a Hogwarts House.”
“But with that?!” Atobe put a hand to his hip and stared at the offending headpiece in revulsion. “Suzaku!”
There was a brilliant flash of red that surrounded his form for one brief moment before it flowed up above him high toward the ceiling and back down again to form into a man-sized bird with shimmering red feathers and long glistening crest and tail plumage of all shades of the rainbow. Several echoing notes of music heralded its appearance. There was an audible gasp of awe from the Hogwarts children.
“Is that a phoenix?”
“I don’t know. It looks a little like Fawkes. Maybe it is.”
At the head of the room, Shishido rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath, “he planned that, didn’t he? What a drama queen.” Next to him, Oshitari and Mukahi shot him incredulous looks.
Atobe ignored the whispers and pointed a finger at the Sorting Hat. “Clean that up,” he ordered, “…and change it into something fashionable while you’re at it.”
Suzaku opened his beak. A jet of pure flame poured out and engulfed the hat.
“What are you doing?!” McGonagall exclaimed. “You’ve burned--”
Her words abruptly stopped as the flames died down, revealing behind it a much-altered Sorting Hat. It was now something of an ornate headdress, dyed in lavender hues and decorated with long feathered plumes.
“Much better.” Atobe picked up the hat and shook it once to get rid of the last few sparks, and then placed it on his head.
The hat cleared its throat.
“I think it goes without saying that one such skill and, uh, will to accomplish great things, err, that is, perfection, could only go to… Slytherin!”
The Hogwarts denizens stared in shocked silence. Their Psidai guests were now collectively rolling their eyes at Atobe’s typical drama, or else shuddering at the new hat they would have to wear. It was Suzaku, however, who broke the silence.
“WHAT?!” The firebird screeched, not at all melodiously. “I’m in the snake house? The house of… of WYRMS?!”
Several Slytherins bristled at the insult. Most of the children, however, were still too shocked to hear an animal, no matter how magical, actually speak. Atobe, meanwhile, was clearly unimpressed with his spirit guardian’s protests, and nonchalantly started walking toward the Slytherin table, perforce making Suzaku follow him, complaining all the way.
“I’m a bird, damn it! Why couldn’t I have been the bird house?! Why does it have to be wyrms! Slimy… stupid bunch of reptiles! That should be where Seiryuu goes! Not me!”
“Oi! Don’t drag me into this, Suzaku!” Now everyone’s attention was drawn back to the head of the room, where Tezuka stood stoically and the shimmering form of Seiryuu towered over him.
“Why shouldn’t I?!” Suzaku demanded. “You’d fit right in with the snakes! Wyrm!”
“Damn it, Suzaku! Enough with the wyrms! I’m no more a snake than you’re a crow! Give it up already!”
“Hell no! Snake! Why the hell am I stuck in this house that you’re going to end up in too!”
“Like hell am I going into any house you’re in, you overgrown pigeon!”
“Will you two cut it out?!” Byakko suddenly intervened, his loud roar echoing in the room even before the huge white tiger spirit leapt out from Tachibana. “The rest of us would like to get this thing over with sometime this century, you know!”
“You stay out of it, Byakko!” snapped Suzaku and Seiryuu in unison.
“Feh. I don’t know why I bother,” Byakko muttered as he dropped down to lie by Tachibana’s feet.
The bickering between dragon and phoenix resumed.
“Snake!”
“Pheasant!”
“Wyrm!”
“Chicken!”
“Seiryuu! Suzaku! Compose yourselves!” Tezuka finally barked out, halting the shouting match. “You’re being rude!”
“Hai,” Seiryuu muttered as he immediately shrunk down to perch on Tezuka’s shoulder.
Tezuka gave Atobe a pointed look. The other young man had already sat down at the Slytherin table by this point, lounging across the bench with empty spaces all around him, most likely due to the sparks that Suzaku had been constantly emitting in irritation.
Atobe merely cocked an eyebrow at Suzaku, who also grudgingly shrunk down with muted mutterings and perched himself on his host’s shoulder. There was a long moment of silence before everyone realized that the drama of the moment was over.
Dumbledore spoke up first. “Ah, Professor McGonagall. If you would continue?”
McGonagall visibly gathered herself together. Clearing her throat again, she read off the third name on her list.
“Echizen, Rye-oh-ma!”
The apathetic boy walked up without bothering to correct the pronunciation of his name. He gingerly picked up the altered Sorting Hat and grimaced at the now utterly flamboyant headpiece.
“Ne, Soi Boshi, can you change this back?” Even the old shabby thing was better than this.
A sprig of what appeared to be water popped up from Echizen’s head and hovered just above him, coalescing into a mini dragon.
“Sorry, Ryoma, but I don’t have the power to overwrite the magic of a greater God-Beast.”
And then it disappeared back into him.
“Che.” Echizen took off his cap and shoved the ornate sorting headdress onto his head, covering up his eyes as he did so. “Mada mada dane.”
Meanwhile, hushed whispers floated around the room. “Greater… God… Beast?!” Snape looked at Atobe with unease mixed with calculation. Curiously, Dumbledore was doing the same under the twinkling of his eyes.
“Ravenclaw!”
“Damn it! Why does one of Seiryuu’s lackeys get sorted into the bird house and I didn’t?!” Suzaku demanded. “He should be in the wyrm house!”
Echizen merely replaced his cap and pulled it over his eyes. His seishuku spirit, now acclimated to its host’s apathy, didn’t even bother popping out for a rejoinder. It wasn’t as if it was in any position to argue with a greater power like Suzaku, after all.
“Fuji… S-aye-you-sue-kay!”
Fuji looked pained while the rest of his peers chuckled behind his back at the utter mangling of his name.
“That’s Syuusuke, ma’am,” the tensai corrected.
“Ah. Thank you.” McGonagall made a few notes on her roll sheet.
Fuji shuddered as he picked up the sorting hat, and put it on his head. It only took the hat a moment to decide his house.
“Ravenclaw!”
“Another one!” spat Suzaku. “What is it with Seiryuu and the bird house?!”
Nakago Boshi, unlike Soi Boshi, had no qualms about popping out of its host for a rejoinder.
“Like I want to be in the house of crows! I’m a dragon damn it! A millennia old heavenly dragon spirit! NOT a snake!”
The Ravenclaws looked torn between impressed at having two dragons in their midst and being insulted by being called a house of crows.
“Fuji!” Tezuka intervened again. “Control your spirit!”
“Saa, if you say so, Tezuka,” Fuji sighed. Nakago Boshi shot one look at the chibified Seiryuu still perched on Tezuka’s shoulder and dove back into its host.
“Coward! You’re no different from a snake!” Suzaku called after it, getting the last word.
“Please, Mr. Atobe,” McGonagall finally called out in exasperation, “keep that creature of yours under control! You are disrupting the Sorting!”
Atobe merely raised a nonchalant eyebrow at both the harried professor and the irritated Suzaku.
“Fuji, Yuuta!”
“Hufflepuff!”
The Hufflepuff table began to politely clap at the first person being sorted into their house. However, they were interrupted when a small blurry whirlwind swept out of Yuuta and coalesced into a black tiger with white stripes.
“The hell? I got put into the house of the rodent?”
“What the hell are you complaining about, pussy!” Suzaku immediately butted in. “The rat house’s no better than the wyrm house!”
“Shut up, Suzaku!” Byakko growled, leaping to his feet again. “Seiryuu’s seishuku are his business, but stop picking on mine!”
“Try and stop me, furball!”
Byakko snarled and began to grow in size.
“Byakko!” Tachibana barked out this time. “Behave!”
“Che.” Byakko shrunk back to the size of a normal tiger and threw himself down by Tachibana’s feet again, glaring at Suzaku all the while.
“Hiyoshi, Wakashi!”
“Slytherin!”
“Mitsukake!” Suzaku yelled toward the brown haired boy the moment Hiyoshi sat down not too far away from Atobe. “What the hell was that?!”
A small burst of flame in the vague shape of an avian appeared from Hiyoshi’s form. “Ack! I’m sorry, Suzaku-sama! But the hat said that Hiyoshi-kun’s ambitions definitely belonged to Slytherin!”
“Do you have a problem with Hiyoshi?” Atobe finally spoke up, just as Suzaku was about to reply. There was a dark overtone of warning in his voice.
“Uh, no!” Mitsukake Boshi immediately ducked back into its host.
“…Feh.” Suzaku grudgingly backed down before Atobe’s steady look.
Atobe nodded in satisfaction and turned back to watch the sorting. Many of the Slytherins around the table, seeing that he did have full control of the mouthy phoenix spirit, were now giving him admiring and respectful looks.
“Ibu, Shinji!”
The hat began to speak as soon as it was placed onto Shinji’s head. “Well, you’re certainly a unique one. You’ve more or less got the ambition and the by any means ethic for Slytherin. You’re also hardworking and loyal enough for Hufflepuff, even if it’s kind of disturbing in your absolute devotion to your Tachibana-san. But you’ve also got that spark of brilliance in you… a tensai, you say? Well, I guess when you put everything together, you’ll probably do best in… Ravenclaw!”
Shinji plucked the hat off and shuffled silently toward the Ravenclaw tables. His Byakko seishuku spirit popped out the moment he sat down.
“House of birds, eh?” The tiger spirit licked its lips. “Yum.”
A flaming Suzaku seishuku spirit popped out of Jiroh. “Try it and die, furball!” Then immediately plunged back into its host.
Meanwhile, McGonagall stared at the strangely verbose sorting hat for a moment before shaking off her exasperation.
“Inui, Sadaharu!”
The bespectacled young man had his head buried in his notebook the entire way up to the Sorting Hat. His Seiryuu seishuku spirit was already out and perched on his shoulder, looking over his notations and whispering in his ear. Upon reaching the stool, Inui snapped his notebook shut and adjusted his glasses.
“There is a 80% chance that I will be sorted into Slytherin,” he stated matter-of-factly and then put the hat on.
“Slytherin!”
Inui placed the hat back and opened his notebook again, scribbling as he walked toward the Slytherin table. “100% confirmation of my predictions…”
“I knew it,” Snape gloated softly from the head table. Madame Sprout rolled her eyes.
“Well, so we finally see a wyrm in the wyrm house,” Suzaku hissed at Inui’s Mi Boshi. The other spirit merely slinked around to Inui’s other shoulder to put its host between itself and the phoenix. Association with its host taught Mi Boshi when not to speak up as well.
“Jakkaru, Kuwahara!”
“Go, Jackal!” came the cheer from the Psidai ranks as the dark skinned young man rose to head for the Sorting Hat.
Jackal whirled around. “Bunta!” he chided, only to be answered by the popping of bubble gum. Sighing to himself, Jackal quickly walked up to the Sorting Hat and put it on.
“Hufflepuff!”
For once, no one and nothing protested as he took his seat at the Hufflepuff table.
“Kabaji, Munehiro!”
“He’s in Slytherin.” The words did not come from the Sorting Hat this time, but from Atobe. “Kabaji! Come here!”
“Uss.” Kabaji’s great hulking form rose up from his seat and tromped over to Atobe at the Slytherin table.
“Well, I never!” McGonagall huffed. “Mr. Atobe! Your friend must be sorted by the Sorting Hat. You cannot just dictate where he is to be sorted!”
Atobe raised an eyebrow as he met McGonagall’s gaze squarely. “Kabaji is with me,” he stated flatly. Suzaku looked between his host and the Hogwarts professor.
“Mr. Atobe,” McGonagall warned, “if you persist in disrupting the Sorting, then I shall have to take points from S--”
Then suddenly, a gigantic phoenix spirit was looming over the entire room, shimmering wings spread across the ceiling, razor sharp talons gripping the entire cross surface of the Slytherin table, and fiery eyes glaring down at McGonagall and the Sorting Hat. His impressive aura slammed into the collective assembly of Hogwarts children and faculty, freezing them where they sat or stood.
“The Sorting Hat agrees with Atobe-sama… rrright?” boomed Suzaku.
“Yes! Slytherin!” yelled the hat loudly and desperately. “He’s definitely in Slytherin!”
Dumbledore finally succeeded in rousing himself from the psychic grip of Suzaku’s aura and coughed lightly. “I believe we can make an exception for Mr. Kabaji this time, Minerva” he told his Deputy Headmistress.
Satisfied with the concession, Suzaku shrunk back down and resumed sitting smugly on Atobe’s shoulder. Kabaji sat down next to Atobe, and was immediately relegated to the role of untouchable servant to a powerful master in the minds of all the Slytherins in the room. Atobe, meanwhile, had dismissed McGonagall from his stare as soon as he’d gotten what he demanded.
“Whipped,” Seiryuu coughed under his breath from where he was floating above Tezuka’s head, low enough that Suzaku wouldn’t hear him.
“Shut up, Seiryuu,” Byakko hissed softly as he peered at the smugly preening phoenix from slitted eyes. “Don’t get him started again.”
Dumbldore gestured at McGonagall to continue. The transfigurations professor breathed deeply and returned to the roll call, but not before shooting a nervous last look at the still preening Suzaku.
“Kaidoh, Kaoru!”
The hat took much longer this time to decide.
“Huf… Gryf… Huf… Slytherin!”
There were a few groans of disappointment from the Gryffindor table. Many were wondering why no one had been sorted into their House among the ten or so people sorted so far.
Meanwhile, Inui raised an eyebrow as Kaidoh sat down beside him.
“Kaidoh…”
“Yes, Inui-senpai?”
“Based on the criteria used by the Sorting Hat and your personality, there was only a 10% probability that you would have been sorted into Slytherin.” Inui cocked his head questioningly. Several nearby Slytherins suddenly became interested in their conversation. “What did the hat say to you?”
Kaidoh merely shrugged. “It said that I could go into Slytherin because of something about parseltongue?”
Meanwhile, the Gryffindor house had burst into enthusiastic applause for Kamio, as the first person to be sorted there, when they were suddenly interrupted by a loud cry from those at the Slytherin table sitting near Inui and Kaidoh.
“HE’S A PARSELMOUTH?!?!”
Kaidoh blinked as he suddenly found himself the center of attention of nearly the entire room. He automatically looked to Inui for help.
“Senpai, what’s a parselmouth?”
Inui facefaulted. So his seishuku spirit explained instead. “A parselmouth is a person who can talk to snakes.”
Kaidoh blinked some more, still looking confused. “…So? What’s so special about that?”
Suzaku burst out laughing. “Don’t tell me! That hat didn’t even bother with the fact that you’re a general beast-speaker and just latched onto the snake part! BWAHAHA! It figures! Wrym-tongue, wrym seishuku, wyrm house! HAHAHA!”
“But that can’t be all there is to it,” Inui insisted when he finally recovered from his surprise. “There is an actual parselmouth in Hogwarts right now who wasn’t sorted into Slytherin.” Many people were now shooting looks at Harry, who was also listening to the conversation with great interest and unease.
“Your psychological profile is so far more suited for Hufflepuff. Why didn’t the hat--” Inui suddenly broke off as a thought occurred to him. “Wait. Don’t tell me, Kaoru. Did the Sorting Hat actually offer--”
“Took you long enough to figure it out, smart boy,” Ashitari Boshi grumbled as it popped out of Kaidoh. “The hat let him choose between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Three guesses what he picked.” It shot Inui a grin as Kaidoh hissed and looked away. “Not that I mind, of course.”
“Why, Kaoru,” Inui grinned disturbingly, “I’m touched.”
“Pffft, don’t be,” Ashitari shot back. “We both know that you’d have kidnapped him out of Hufflepuff on the first day anyhow. He’s just saving himself an extra dose of poisoning.”
“Shut up!” Kaidoh hissed at his seishuku spirit, sounding quite serpentine. The conversation was getting far too personal.
“Eep. Going now,” Ashitari squeaked and disappeared back into him.
Several Slytherins, including Snape, were now looking at the two former Seigaku boys in a new light. There was just something about the fact that they now had a parselmouth in the Serpent House too, never mind that they were conveniently forgetting Suzaku’s jibe about being a general beast-speaker.
McGonagall frowned at the commotion from the Slytherin table before continuing her roll call again.
“Kentaro, Aoi!”
“Anou... That’s Aoi Kentaro, McGonagall-sensei.”
“Oh. My apologies.” McGonagall made a notation on the roster while the hyperactive boy jumped onto the stool and put the hat on.
“Gryffindor!”
Kentaro veritably bounced out of the stool, one fist shooting into the air.
“Go cats!”
“Go, go!” Echoed his feline seishuku spirit, which was also mimicking his stance atop Kentaro’s head.
“Yeah, go cats!” cheered Kamio’s seishuku spirit also as Kentaro bounced over and into a nearby seat. In no time at all, between Kamio’s hyper-metabolism and Kentaro’s adrenaline-aura, the two and everyone else around them were nearly vibrating with energy.
“Kikumaru, Eiji!”
“Gryffindor!”
A third energetic empath joined the other two hyperactive young men at the Gryffindor table. The vibrations increased.
“Kirihara, Akaya!”
“Gryffindor!”
Kirihara moved toward the Gryffindor table, but was suddenly halted when something clonked to the ground behind him. All that most people could see was that it was something large and stone-like and had four stubby limbs that were helplessly waving in the air.
“Eep.” Kirihara raced back and picked it up in both arms. It was quite clear that the object was quite heavy, and that fact was further driven home when Kirihara dropped it on the table, far away from the three energetic freaks vibrating down the table. The thing, which everyone could now see was a large stone turtle-like creature, shook the table when it landed.
“Klutz!” quipped Suzaku from across the room.
“Uh, is that your guardian spirit… thing?” asked Neville Longbottom, who happened to be next to Kirihara.
“Eh?” Kirihara blinked at the other boy. “Hai, sore wa Genbu no seishuku, Hikitsu Boshi.”
“Huh?”
“He said I’m Hikitsu Boshi, a seishuku spirit under Genbu,” said the spirit. “Don’t mind him, he just hasn’t gotten into the habit of actually using his newly acquired English vocabulary yet.”
“Oh…” Neville replied, still looking confused. “Um, okay.”
“Marui, Bunta!”
“Ravenclaw!”
A steady stream of pops accompanied the redhead tensai all the way to the Ravenclaw table.
“Mizuki, Hajime!”
“Slytherin!”
“Aww, why me?” whined Amefuri Boshi as Mizuki slinked over to the Slytherin table, sitting down on Inui’s other side and trying to sneak peeks at the other’s notebook.
“Shut up,” Mi Boshi hissed softly at it from Inui’s shoulder. “You don’t want to set Suzaku off again.”
Inui merely turned and leaned into Kaidoh slightly so that his notebook was facing away from Mizuki. Kaidoh barely spared a glance at the notebook that was now facing him and his senpai who was sort of half leaning against his shoulder and hiss-sighed, putting his face down to the table in his arms. Unlike Mizuki, he didn’t really want to know what Inui was writing in that notebook half the time.
“Momoshiro, Takeshi!”
“Gryffindor!”
A fourth walking disaster joined the other three that were still vibrating away at the Gryffindor table. Over at Slytherin, Inui mumbled something about the time it would take for them to total the entire table. Beside him, Kaidoh and Mizuki both shuddered, thankful that they weren’t in Gryffindor.
“Mukahi, Gakuto!”
“Gryffindor!”
Mukahi tore the hat off of his head with a loudly screeched “WHAT?!”
“You mean I have to be in the same house as Kikumaru?!”
“You mean I have to be in the same house as THAT?!” came the yell from the Gryffindor table at the same time.
The two redheads immediately turned and glared at each other.
“What the hell do you mean by that, Kikumaru, you lousy second-rate acrobat!”
“Who the hell are you calling second-rate?! Everyone knows I’m much better than you!”
“Like hell! I’m ten times more flexible than you!”
“That is such a LIE! I’m SO much more bendy than YOU!”
The yelling contest was suddenly interrupted by two voices from the remaining Psidai students at the head of the room.
“Eiji! Calm down!” Oishi called out.
“Gakuto! Shut up already!” Oshitari called out likewise.
The two acrobats immediately turned their attentions to their respective boyfriends.
“But Oishiiii!” Eiji whined loudly. “Did you hear what he said!?”
“Yuushi! What the hell are you doing telling me to ‘shut up’!?” Gakuto demanded.
But before the two-person argument could devolve into a four-person argument, Tezuka stepped in once more.
“Kikumaru! Be quiet.” Eiji’s mouth snapped shut and he dropped into his seat sulkily.
“Mukahi!” came the clear though bored command from the Slytherin table. “Sit down and shut up. I want to get this farce over with.”
Mukahi stormed over to the Gryffindor table and sat down as far away from Eiji as he could. Though the two of them were still glaring at each other the entire time.
McGonagall, who had been about to reprimand the two new Gryffindors, snapped her mouth shut. Snape, who had likewise been about to use the chance to take points from Gryffindor, was giving Atobe a surprised and thoughtful look.
“Niou, Masaharu!”
“Slytherin!”
“Ohtori, Choutarou!”
“Hufflepuff!”
The Hufflepuff House erupted into cheers once again for the third person to be sorted there, as opposed to the six or seven that had already been sorted into the other houses. Ohtori blushed at his welcome and thanked everyone profusely.
“Oishi, Shuichiroh!”
Oishi walked up to the Sorting Hat. But scarcely had his hand touched the hat when it declared loudly, “Hufflepuff! Most definitely a Hufflepuff!”
Oishi blinked at the hat and slowly withdrew his head. “Anou… thank you, Hat-san?” he said sheepishly, and bowed slightly to both McGonagall and the hat before moving toward the Hufflepuff table.
“But Oishi!” Eiji suddenly called out from the Gryffindor table. “We’re in different houses!”
Oishi paused in his steps and smiled to his partner. “It’s okay, Eiji. I’m sure we can visit each other.” Many of the Psidai students shuddered quietly at the concept of the Golden Pair ‘visiting’ together.
“Oh, okay!” Eiji’s mood did a 180 and he plopped back into his seat again, already planning his first foray into the Hufflepuff dorms.
“Why are we in the rodent house again?” Oishi’s seishuku spirit suddenly popped out and asked when Oishi sat down. “Anything else would’ve been better than that!”
“Tomo Boshi-san!” Oishi admonished sternly. “That’s not nice. Just because you dislike a certain species doesn’t mean you should malign someone else’s group mascot…” He immediately launched into a semi-lecture, which sent Tomo Boshi scurrying back into its host.
“Oh, my word!” squealed Madame Sprout up at the front table. “I think I like that one!”
“You would,” Snape muttered and rolled his eyes.
“Oshitari, Yuushi!”
“Ravenclaw!”
“Damn it, Yuushi!” Mukahi called out from the Gryffindor table. “You’d better come over often or I’m moving into your room!”
Oshitari sighed and rubbed his temples.
“Saeki, Koujirou!”
“Gryffindor!”
“Sanada Genichirou!”
Sanada silently walked up to the Sorting Hat. He picked up the flamboyant piece of headdress distastefully. Some of the Psidai students perked up, sensing that something big was about to happen again.
“Genbu.”
The entire room quieted when a deep black aura began to expand out from Sanada, centered on his chest. The inky blackness rose high into the air, before toppling to the side.
BOOM!
The huge obsidian turtle-like creature crashed onto the ground next to Sanada, shaking the floor with his impact as he landed on his shell, with four thick limbs flailing in the air.
“Oh, look, it’s the wyrm wannabe,” drawled Suzaku into the stunned silence. “Show some bloody class, Genbu, you klutz!”
“Shut up, Suzaku!” came the deep booming voice. A long serpentine tail and neck emerged from the two ends of the turtle shell, and together served to flip the large creature right side up.
A large reptilian head at the end of a long serpentine neck craned down to regard Sanada. The former Rikkai fukubuchou held up the hat that Atobe had altered.
“Change it. Something simple.”
Genbu blinked slowly. The air around the Sorting Hat wavered for a moment, and then it shrunk down into the form… of a baseball cap.
“You have no taste, Sanada!” Atobe called out indignantly from the Slytherin tables.
Sanada ignored him and exchanged his cap for the new Sorting Hat. There was a moment’s pause as the hat considered.
“Sly… Gry… Sly…”
“You’d better not end up in the same house I’m in, Genbu, you clumsy disgrace of all things mobile!” snapped Suzaku.
“Quit your bickering, Suzaku,” Genbu snapped back, “it’s not like the hat’s sorting by my personality!”
“Well, my host doesn’t want your host in the same house as him too!” Suzaku declared for Atobe. Genbu rolled his eyes.
Momo leaned over to Eiji with a whisper that was far too loud and carrying. “Ne, Eiji-senpai, but wasn’t there that rumor about Sanada having a thing for Atobe?”
“Hoi. You’re right,” mused Eiji thoughtfully.
Sanada twitched where he sat. The hat immediately decided that Slytherin was definitely not the place for him.
“Hufflepuff!”
There was much loud cheering from that table as the Hufflepuffs realized that they had just gotten one of the more powerful the exchange students. Sanada walked towards the table, but stopped when the heard the first booming step following him. Turning, he addressed his spirit guardian.
“Genbu, stop shaking the ground.”
Genbu slowly blinked again, before shrinking down into chibified form and floating into the air, his stubby limbs shimmering into the paddles of a tortoise. He more or less swam through the air at shoulder level as he followed his host to the Hufflepuff table.
“Sengoku!”
“Gryffindor!”
“Lucky!” Sengoku commented as he sat down near several Gryffindor girls.
His feline spirit pranced around over his head. “Yeah! House of the cats, baby!” It jumped around to cavort with the two other Byakko seishuku there.
“Shishido, Ryou!”
“Hufflepuff!”
Atobe blinked. “You have got to be kidding me.” He had quickly figured out most of the criteria the Sorting Hat used to separate out the houses. And in his opinion, Shishido was certainly not a Hufflepuff.
“Pfft,” Suzaku remarked caustically. “You know the hat put him there ‘cause it knows putting him anywhere else will probably get the room leveled, if not the whole castle.”
Several of the professors who heard the comment shot uneasy looks at Shishido, who was quite obvious to it all as he sat down next to Ohtori and immediately monopolized his kouhai.
“Tachibana, Kippei!”
Tachibana strode confidently up to the hat with the great hulking form of Byakko following at his heals. The Gryffindors watched avidly, eager in their conviction that someone with a tiger spirit must surely end up in their house.
“Hufflepuff!” announced the hat after a small pause.
“WHAT!?” roared Byakko. “The RODENT House?! Why the hell not the cat house, damn it?!” He unknowingly echoed the same question that many of the disappointed children from Gryffindor house were also asking.
“Oh, quit your whining, Byakko,” Suzaku snapped. “At least it’s still an animal of the same class as you!”
“I’m a carnivore!” Byakko growled back, growing in size as he became more irritated. “I don’t belong in a house of bloody vermin!”
“Too late to talk now, you hypocritical pussy!”
“Well, actually,” Inui muttered from elsewhere at the Slytherin table, “badgers also belong to order Carnivora…”
“Sshhhh!!” Mi Boshi and Amefuri Boshi hissed at him in unison, with the latter shooting nervous looks at Byakko. One really didn’t argue with a Greater God Beast for one’s health.
Tachibana took off the Sorting Hat and looked up with a stern stare. “You have a problem, Byakko?” he asked flatly.
Byakko blinked down at his host, before suddenly shrinking down to the size of a house cat.
“No, no problem at all…” The cat-sized tiger squeaked, and then followed obediently at Tachibana’s heels to the Hufflepuff table.
“Whipped!” sniggered Suzaku.
But then his attention was abruptly diverted when McGonagall called out, “Tezuka, Kunimitsu!”
All the Psidai students watched with bated breath as Tezuka walked up to the Sorting Hat. Seiryuu left his shoulder and expanded until his long body encircled the entire room several times, floating at nearly ceiling level above everyone’s heads and the floating candles. Only his head dipped low to hover next to Tezuka.
“You’re not seriously going to wear that, are you?” Seiryuu asked of his host as Tezuka picked up the baseball cap.
Tezuka considered the question for a moment before holding out the cap to the dragon spirit.
“Return it to its original state.”
Seiryuu opened his maw to comply, but suddenly shut it again. “Wait. Do you mean return it to the shabby state it was in before Suzaku first changed it? Or do you mean return it to the state it was right after it was first created by the Hogwarts founders?”
“The latter.”
“Okay.” Seiryuu exhaled and a large cloud of opaque mist engulfed the cap. When it dissipated, the Sorting Hat was back into the form of a large wizard’s pointy hat, except in crisp and brand new condition.
“Whew-wow!” exclaimed the Sorting Hat. “I haven’t felt that refreshed since forever!”
The Hogwarts teachers and students were gaping in awe.
“Damn it, Tezuka!” Atobe snapped, clearly unimpressed, “don’t you have any taste either?!”
Tezuka ignored him and put the hat on.
“Oh… wow…” stuttered the Sorting Hat, and that was all it said for a long while.
“What the hell do you mean, ‘oh wow’, you stupid hat,” Suzaku screeched as he suddenly shot up to room-size as well. “Where are you sorting him?!”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” rumbled Seiryuu through slitted eyes.
Byakko and Genbu, still in their chibi forms, turned to look at each other across their hosts’ shoulders.
“This won’t end well.”
“Probably.”
Meanwhile, the Sorting Hat visibly gulped at the searing glares coming from both major beast-gods.
“Err… well, Tezuka-san does have more than enough courage and, my goodness, fame, for Gryffindor… but he also has more than enough ambition, ruthlessness, and drive for Slytherin… though, his work ethic and unswerving streak of determination and loyalty to his people and causes is such a Hufflepuff trait… and yet, he’s also got a brilliant mind that would be perfectly at home in Ravenclaw… and… um… well, since he can’t be sorted into all four houses, I suppose… err… his most dominant personality and traits is really the most suited for… Hufflepuff.”
“What was that?!” Demanded the two spirits, who weren’t sure they heard that last mumbled word correctly.
“It said, Hufflepuff,” Tezuka calmly told them, staring both spirit guardians down in case either tried to destroy the Sorting Hat for doing its job.
For a moment, everyone gaped in surprise, especially Seiryuu and Suzaku, who were simply gaping at Tezuka.
“Wha? …B-b-but…” Suzaku had been reduced to speechless stuttering.
Seiryuu was slightly more eloquent. “NOOOOOOOooooooooo!!” He suddenly shrank down to chibi size and veritably sobbed into Tezuka’s shoulder. “But I wanted to be in the same house as Suzaku!”
“WAAAHHHH!” Suzaku shrunk and fled back to Atobe.
The other Psidai students, out of long experience, collectively winced. They were never going to hear the end of this one.
The Hogwarts students and teachers, however, were quite confused.
“I thought he said earlier he didn’t want to be in the same house as the phoenix?” was the general whispered comment.
McGonagall merely shook sighed in exasperation and shook off her puzzlement. She managed to finish sorting the last three Psidai students, Yagyuu, Yanagi, and Yukimura, into Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw, respectively, without much ado, since the usual agitator of events, Suzaku, was still sulking, and the Genbu seishuku spirits of the last three Psidai students knew better than to attract attention to themselves at this point.
Meanwhile, even as Dumbledore cleared his throat and gave his usual pep talk to the assembled room and started off the Sorting Feast, Seiryuu continued to sob quietly next to Tezuka despite the best efforts of Byakko and Genbu to cheer him up. The same sobbing, coupled with more incessant whining, was coming from Suzaku. Finally, Atobe had enough.
“Oh for god’s sake!” he exclaimed, sweeping up from his seat and stalking over to where Tezuka sat between Sanada and Tachibana.
He stopped next to Sanada. “Move.”
Sanada glared right back at Atobe. “Why should I?”
Instead of explaining, Atobe merely shoved him out of the way, before sitting down next to Tezuka.
“Are you happy now?” he demanded of Suzaku, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
But Suzaku and Seiryuu were too busy curling up in happiness to hear him.
~~~
Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis. I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own GATE manga, though the actual constellations and mythology we're using is probably public domain.
Addendum: Added the girls goggling over Ohtori and snipped a few parts to make the word count 5666. XD
Addendum (6/2/05): Corrected the name error for Kentaro and some other stuff.
Unfortunately, it's a scene that's smack in the middle of the side-story/xover thing that
cashew and I were talking about earlier. So without the complicated setup before, the content of the story as in why's what happening is probably going to be incomprehensible to anyone else. Oh well. Read at your own risk.Scene: The Sorting
Series: The Psidai/GATE/HP/Etc. xover/sidestory series...thing.
Fandom: Prince of Tennis, GATE, Harry Potter
Rating: PG for language
Warnings: Crack. Randomness. HP-bashing, sort of.
Word Count: 5803
“Akutagawa, Jiroh!”
There was a brief pause, followed by a loud buzz and a yelp of pain.
“Ack! I’m going already, Atobe! Stop shocking me!” A brown haired boy darted out from the Psidai ranks and down the Great Hall.
There was a low murmuring from among his peers.
“You mean he still has that thing?” Momo hissed in what was supposed to be a whisper.
“Wow, Atobe-san sure is harsh,” added Kentaro.
“It’s effective though,” Yanagi grinned.
“I’m more interested in how he got it to work in Hogwart’s anti-technology zone,” Inui added.
The various Hogwarts children stared in unease. Just what kind of people were in this abroad program anyways?
“This Atobe guy must be a Slytherin,” muttered Ron.
“Ron!” Hermione admonished.
Meanwhile, Jiroh had jammed the Sorting Hat onto his head. There was a short pause while the hat dug through his mind.
“Ravenclaw!”
There was a light buzz from the Ravenclaw table as Jiroh joined them. Welcomes were cautiously extended, though they were answered by the sound of light snores. Jiroh had fallen asleep the moment he’d sat down, much to everyone’s chagrin.
“Atobe, Keigo!”
Everyone’s attention was immediately drawn back to the arrogant looking young man who sauntered up to the hat. Atobe stopped right before the chair and looked down his nose at the shoddy Sorting Hat in distaste.
“You really don’t expect to put that… thing… on ore-sama’s beautiful head, do you?”
A few of the younger years tittered at the use of “beautiful” by a boy, but nervously trailed off when they realized that Atobe was being perfectly serious.
McGonagall cleared her throat. “I’m afraid you must, Mr. Atobe. You must be sorted into a Hogwarts House.”
“But with that?!” Atobe put a hand to his hip and stared at the offending headpiece in revulsion. “Suzaku!”
There was a brilliant flash of red that surrounded his form for one brief moment before it flowed up above him high toward the ceiling and back down again to form into a man-sized bird with shimmering red feathers and long glistening crest and tail plumage of all shades of the rainbow. Several echoing notes of music heralded its appearance. There was an audible gasp of awe from the Hogwarts children.
“Is that a phoenix?”
“I don’t know. It looks a little like Fawkes. Maybe it is.”
At the head of the room, Shishido rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath, “he planned that, didn’t he? What a drama queen.” Next to him, Oshitari and Mukahi shot him incredulous looks.
Atobe ignored the whispers and pointed a finger at the Sorting Hat. “Clean that up,” he ordered, “…and change it into something fashionable while you’re at it.”
Suzaku opened his beak. A jet of pure flame poured out and engulfed the hat.
“What are you doing?!” McGonagall exclaimed. “You’ve burned--”
Her words abruptly stopped as the flames died down, revealing behind it a much-altered Sorting Hat. It was now something of an ornate headdress, dyed in lavender hues and decorated with long feathered plumes.
“Much better.” Atobe picked up the hat and shook it once to get rid of the last few sparks, and then placed it on his head.
The hat cleared its throat.
“I think it goes without saying that one such skill and, uh, will to accomplish great things, err, that is, perfection, could only go to… Slytherin!”
The Hogwarts denizens stared in shocked silence. Their Psidai guests were now collectively rolling their eyes at Atobe’s typical drama, or else shuddering at the new hat they would have to wear. It was Suzaku, however, who broke the silence.
“WHAT?!” The firebird screeched, not at all melodiously. “I’m in the snake house? The house of… of WYRMS?!”
Several Slytherins bristled at the insult. Most of the children, however, were still too shocked to hear an animal, no matter how magical, actually speak. Atobe, meanwhile, was clearly unimpressed with his spirit guardian’s protests, and nonchalantly started walking toward the Slytherin table, perforce making Suzaku follow him, complaining all the way.
“I’m a bird, damn it! Why couldn’t I have been the bird house?! Why does it have to be wyrms! Slimy… stupid bunch of reptiles! That should be where Seiryuu goes! Not me!”
“Oi! Don’t drag me into this, Suzaku!” Now everyone’s attention was drawn back to the head of the room, where Tezuka stood stoically and the shimmering form of Seiryuu towered over him.
“Why shouldn’t I?!” Suzaku demanded. “You’d fit right in with the snakes! Wyrm!”
“Damn it, Suzaku! Enough with the wyrms! I’m no more a snake than you’re a crow! Give it up already!”
“Hell no! Snake! Why the hell am I stuck in this house that you’re going to end up in too!”
“Like hell am I going into any house you’re in, you overgrown pigeon!”
“Will you two cut it out?!” Byakko suddenly intervened, his loud roar echoing in the room even before the huge white tiger spirit leapt out from Tachibana. “The rest of us would like to get this thing over with sometime this century, you know!”
“You stay out of it, Byakko!” snapped Suzaku and Seiryuu in unison.
“Feh. I don’t know why I bother,” Byakko muttered as he dropped down to lie by Tachibana’s feet.
The bickering between dragon and phoenix resumed.
“Snake!”
“Pheasant!”
“Wyrm!”
“Chicken!”
“Seiryuu! Suzaku! Compose yourselves!” Tezuka finally barked out, halting the shouting match. “You’re being rude!”
“Hai,” Seiryuu muttered as he immediately shrunk down to perch on Tezuka’s shoulder.
Tezuka gave Atobe a pointed look. The other young man had already sat down at the Slytherin table by this point, lounging across the bench with empty spaces all around him, most likely due to the sparks that Suzaku had been constantly emitting in irritation.
Atobe merely cocked an eyebrow at Suzaku, who also grudgingly shrunk down with muted mutterings and perched himself on his host’s shoulder. There was a long moment of silence before everyone realized that the drama of the moment was over.
Dumbledore spoke up first. “Ah, Professor McGonagall. If you would continue?”
McGonagall visibly gathered herself together. Clearing her throat again, she read off the third name on her list.
“Echizen, Rye-oh-ma!”
The apathetic boy walked up without bothering to correct the pronunciation of his name. He gingerly picked up the altered Sorting Hat and grimaced at the now utterly flamboyant headpiece.
“Ne, Soi Boshi, can you change this back?” Even the old shabby thing was better than this.
A sprig of what appeared to be water popped up from Echizen’s head and hovered just above him, coalescing into a mini dragon.
“Sorry, Ryoma, but I don’t have the power to overwrite the magic of a greater God-Beast.”
And then it disappeared back into him.
“Che.” Echizen took off his cap and shoved the ornate sorting headdress onto his head, covering up his eyes as he did so. “Mada mada dane.”
Meanwhile, hushed whispers floated around the room. “Greater… God… Beast?!” Snape looked at Atobe with unease mixed with calculation. Curiously, Dumbledore was doing the same under the twinkling of his eyes.
“Ravenclaw!”
“Damn it! Why does one of Seiryuu’s lackeys get sorted into the bird house and I didn’t?!” Suzaku demanded. “He should be in the wyrm house!”
Echizen merely replaced his cap and pulled it over his eyes. His seishuku spirit, now acclimated to its host’s apathy, didn’t even bother popping out for a rejoinder. It wasn’t as if it was in any position to argue with a greater power like Suzaku, after all.
“Fuji… S-aye-you-sue-kay!”
Fuji looked pained while the rest of his peers chuckled behind his back at the utter mangling of his name.
“That’s Syuusuke, ma’am,” the tensai corrected.
“Ah. Thank you.” McGonagall made a few notes on her roll sheet.
Fuji shuddered as he picked up the sorting hat, and put it on his head. It only took the hat a moment to decide his house.
“Ravenclaw!”
“Another one!” spat Suzaku. “What is it with Seiryuu and the bird house?!”
Nakago Boshi, unlike Soi Boshi, had no qualms about popping out of its host for a rejoinder.
“Like I want to be in the house of crows! I’m a dragon damn it! A millennia old heavenly dragon spirit! NOT a snake!”
The Ravenclaws looked torn between impressed at having two dragons in their midst and being insulted by being called a house of crows.
“Fuji!” Tezuka intervened again. “Control your spirit!”
“Saa, if you say so, Tezuka,” Fuji sighed. Nakago Boshi shot one look at the chibified Seiryuu still perched on Tezuka’s shoulder and dove back into its host.
“Coward! You’re no different from a snake!” Suzaku called after it, getting the last word.
“Please, Mr. Atobe,” McGonagall finally called out in exasperation, “keep that creature of yours under control! You are disrupting the Sorting!”
Atobe merely raised a nonchalant eyebrow at both the harried professor and the irritated Suzaku.
“Fuji, Yuuta!”
“Hufflepuff!”
The Hufflepuff table began to politely clap at the first person being sorted into their house. However, they were interrupted when a small blurry whirlwind swept out of Yuuta and coalesced into a black tiger with white stripes.
“The hell? I got put into the house of the rodent?”
“What the hell are you complaining about, pussy!” Suzaku immediately butted in. “The rat house’s no better than the wyrm house!”
“Shut up, Suzaku!” Byakko growled, leaping to his feet again. “Seiryuu’s seishuku are his business, but stop picking on mine!”
“Try and stop me, furball!”
Byakko snarled and began to grow in size.
“Byakko!” Tachibana barked out this time. “Behave!”
“Che.” Byakko shrunk back to the size of a normal tiger and threw himself down by Tachibana’s feet again, glaring at Suzaku all the while.
“Hiyoshi, Wakashi!”
“Slytherin!”
“Mitsukake!” Suzaku yelled toward the brown haired boy the moment Hiyoshi sat down not too far away from Atobe. “What the hell was that?!”
A small burst of flame in the vague shape of an avian appeared from Hiyoshi’s form. “Ack! I’m sorry, Suzaku-sama! But the hat said that Hiyoshi-kun’s ambitions definitely belonged to Slytherin!”
“Do you have a problem with Hiyoshi?” Atobe finally spoke up, just as Suzaku was about to reply. There was a dark overtone of warning in his voice.
“Uh, no!” Mitsukake Boshi immediately ducked back into its host.
“…Feh.” Suzaku grudgingly backed down before Atobe’s steady look.
Atobe nodded in satisfaction and turned back to watch the sorting. Many of the Slytherins around the table, seeing that he did have full control of the mouthy phoenix spirit, were now giving him admiring and respectful looks.
“Ibu, Shinji!”
The hat began to speak as soon as it was placed onto Shinji’s head. “Well, you’re certainly a unique one. You’ve more or less got the ambition and the by any means ethic for Slytherin. You’re also hardworking and loyal enough for Hufflepuff, even if it’s kind of disturbing in your absolute devotion to your Tachibana-san. But you’ve also got that spark of brilliance in you… a tensai, you say? Well, I guess when you put everything together, you’ll probably do best in… Ravenclaw!”
Shinji plucked the hat off and shuffled silently toward the Ravenclaw tables. His Byakko seishuku spirit popped out the moment he sat down.
“House of birds, eh?” The tiger spirit licked its lips. “Yum.”
A flaming Suzaku seishuku spirit popped out of Jiroh. “Try it and die, furball!” Then immediately plunged back into its host.
Meanwhile, McGonagall stared at the strangely verbose sorting hat for a moment before shaking off her exasperation.
“Inui, Sadaharu!”
The bespectacled young man had his head buried in his notebook the entire way up to the Sorting Hat. His Seiryuu seishuku spirit was already out and perched on his shoulder, looking over his notations and whispering in his ear. Upon reaching the stool, Inui snapped his notebook shut and adjusted his glasses.
“There is a 80% chance that I will be sorted into Slytherin,” he stated matter-of-factly and then put the hat on.
“Slytherin!”
Inui placed the hat back and opened his notebook again, scribbling as he walked toward the Slytherin table. “100% confirmation of my predictions…”
“I knew it,” Snape gloated softly from the head table. Madame Sprout rolled her eyes.
“Well, so we finally see a wyrm in the wyrm house,” Suzaku hissed at Inui’s Mi Boshi. The other spirit merely slinked around to Inui’s other shoulder to put its host between itself and the phoenix. Association with its host taught Mi Boshi when not to speak up as well.
“Jakkaru, Kuwahara!”
“Go, Jackal!” came the cheer from the Psidai ranks as the dark skinned young man rose to head for the Sorting Hat.
Jackal whirled around. “Bunta!” he chided, only to be answered by the popping of bubble gum. Sighing to himself, Jackal quickly walked up to the Sorting Hat and put it on.
“Hufflepuff!”
For once, no one and nothing protested as he took his seat at the Hufflepuff table.
“Kabaji, Munehiro!”
“He’s in Slytherin.” The words did not come from the Sorting Hat this time, but from Atobe. “Kabaji! Come here!”
“Uss.” Kabaji’s great hulking form rose up from his seat and tromped over to Atobe at the Slytherin table.
“Well, I never!” McGonagall huffed. “Mr. Atobe! Your friend must be sorted by the Sorting Hat. You cannot just dictate where he is to be sorted!”
Atobe raised an eyebrow as he met McGonagall’s gaze squarely. “Kabaji is with me,” he stated flatly. Suzaku looked between his host and the Hogwarts professor.
“Mr. Atobe,” McGonagall warned, “if you persist in disrupting the Sorting, then I shall have to take points from S--”
Then suddenly, a gigantic phoenix spirit was looming over the entire room, shimmering wings spread across the ceiling, razor sharp talons gripping the entire cross surface of the Slytherin table, and fiery eyes glaring down at McGonagall and the Sorting Hat. His impressive aura slammed into the collective assembly of Hogwarts children and faculty, freezing them where they sat or stood.
“The Sorting Hat agrees with Atobe-sama… rrright?” boomed Suzaku.
“Yes! Slytherin!” yelled the hat loudly and desperately. “He’s definitely in Slytherin!”
Dumbledore finally succeeded in rousing himself from the psychic grip of Suzaku’s aura and coughed lightly. “I believe we can make an exception for Mr. Kabaji this time, Minerva” he told his Deputy Headmistress.
Satisfied with the concession, Suzaku shrunk back down and resumed sitting smugly on Atobe’s shoulder. Kabaji sat down next to Atobe, and was immediately relegated to the role of untouchable servant to a powerful master in the minds of all the Slytherins in the room. Atobe, meanwhile, had dismissed McGonagall from his stare as soon as he’d gotten what he demanded.
“Whipped,” Seiryuu coughed under his breath from where he was floating above Tezuka’s head, low enough that Suzaku wouldn’t hear him.
“Shut up, Seiryuu,” Byakko hissed softly as he peered at the smugly preening phoenix from slitted eyes. “Don’t get him started again.”
Dumbldore gestured at McGonagall to continue. The transfigurations professor breathed deeply and returned to the roll call, but not before shooting a nervous last look at the still preening Suzaku.
“Kaidoh, Kaoru!”
The hat took much longer this time to decide.
“Huf… Gryf… Huf… Slytherin!”
There were a few groans of disappointment from the Gryffindor table. Many were wondering why no one had been sorted into their House among the ten or so people sorted so far.
Meanwhile, Inui raised an eyebrow as Kaidoh sat down beside him.
“Kaidoh…”
“Yes, Inui-senpai?”
“Based on the criteria used by the Sorting Hat and your personality, there was only a 10% probability that you would have been sorted into Slytherin.” Inui cocked his head questioningly. Several nearby Slytherins suddenly became interested in their conversation. “What did the hat say to you?”
Kaidoh merely shrugged. “It said that I could go into Slytherin because of something about parseltongue?”
Meanwhile, the Gryffindor house had burst into enthusiastic applause for Kamio, as the first person to be sorted there, when they were suddenly interrupted by a loud cry from those at the Slytherin table sitting near Inui and Kaidoh.
“HE’S A PARSELMOUTH?!?!”
Kaidoh blinked as he suddenly found himself the center of attention of nearly the entire room. He automatically looked to Inui for help.
“Senpai, what’s a parselmouth?”
Inui facefaulted. So his seishuku spirit explained instead. “A parselmouth is a person who can talk to snakes.”
Kaidoh blinked some more, still looking confused. “…So? What’s so special about that?”
Suzaku burst out laughing. “Don’t tell me! That hat didn’t even bother with the fact that you’re a general beast-speaker and just latched onto the snake part! BWAHAHA! It figures! Wrym-tongue, wrym seishuku, wyrm house! HAHAHA!”
“But that can’t be all there is to it,” Inui insisted when he finally recovered from his surprise. “There is an actual parselmouth in Hogwarts right now who wasn’t sorted into Slytherin.” Many people were now shooting looks at Harry, who was also listening to the conversation with great interest and unease.
“Your psychological profile is so far more suited for Hufflepuff. Why didn’t the hat--” Inui suddenly broke off as a thought occurred to him. “Wait. Don’t tell me, Kaoru. Did the Sorting Hat actually offer--”
“Took you long enough to figure it out, smart boy,” Ashitari Boshi grumbled as it popped out of Kaidoh. “The hat let him choose between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Three guesses what he picked.” It shot Inui a grin as Kaidoh hissed and looked away. “Not that I mind, of course.”
“Why, Kaoru,” Inui grinned disturbingly, “I’m touched.”
“Pffft, don’t be,” Ashitari shot back. “We both know that you’d have kidnapped him out of Hufflepuff on the first day anyhow. He’s just saving himself an extra dose of poisoning.”
“Shut up!” Kaidoh hissed at his seishuku spirit, sounding quite serpentine. The conversation was getting far too personal.
“Eep. Going now,” Ashitari squeaked and disappeared back into him.
Several Slytherins, including Snape, were now looking at the two former Seigaku boys in a new light. There was just something about the fact that they now had a parselmouth in the Serpent House too, never mind that they were conveniently forgetting Suzaku’s jibe about being a general beast-speaker.
McGonagall frowned at the commotion from the Slytherin table before continuing her roll call again.
“Kentaro, Aoi!”
“Anou... That’s Aoi Kentaro, McGonagall-sensei.”
“Oh. My apologies.” McGonagall made a notation on the roster while the hyperactive boy jumped onto the stool and put the hat on.
“Gryffindor!”
Kentaro veritably bounced out of the stool, one fist shooting into the air.
“Go cats!”
“Go, go!” Echoed his feline seishuku spirit, which was also mimicking his stance atop Kentaro’s head.
“Yeah, go cats!” cheered Kamio’s seishuku spirit also as Kentaro bounced over and into a nearby seat. In no time at all, between Kamio’s hyper-metabolism and Kentaro’s adrenaline-aura, the two and everyone else around them were nearly vibrating with energy.
“Kikumaru, Eiji!”
“Gryffindor!”
A third energetic empath joined the other two hyperactive young men at the Gryffindor table. The vibrations increased.
“Kirihara, Akaya!”
“Gryffindor!”
Kirihara moved toward the Gryffindor table, but was suddenly halted when something clonked to the ground behind him. All that most people could see was that it was something large and stone-like and had four stubby limbs that were helplessly waving in the air.
“Eep.” Kirihara raced back and picked it up in both arms. It was quite clear that the object was quite heavy, and that fact was further driven home when Kirihara dropped it on the table, far away from the three energetic freaks vibrating down the table. The thing, which everyone could now see was a large stone turtle-like creature, shook the table when it landed.
“Klutz!” quipped Suzaku from across the room.
“Uh, is that your guardian spirit… thing?” asked Neville Longbottom, who happened to be next to Kirihara.
“Eh?” Kirihara blinked at the other boy. “Hai, sore wa Genbu no seishuku, Hikitsu Boshi.”
“Huh?”
“He said I’m Hikitsu Boshi, a seishuku spirit under Genbu,” said the spirit. “Don’t mind him, he just hasn’t gotten into the habit of actually using his newly acquired English vocabulary yet.”
“Oh…” Neville replied, still looking confused. “Um, okay.”
“Marui, Bunta!”
“Ravenclaw!”
A steady stream of pops accompanied the redhead tensai all the way to the Ravenclaw table.
“Mizuki, Hajime!”
“Slytherin!”
“Aww, why me?” whined Amefuri Boshi as Mizuki slinked over to the Slytherin table, sitting down on Inui’s other side and trying to sneak peeks at the other’s notebook.
“Shut up,” Mi Boshi hissed softly at it from Inui’s shoulder. “You don’t want to set Suzaku off again.”
Inui merely turned and leaned into Kaidoh slightly so that his notebook was facing away from Mizuki. Kaidoh barely spared a glance at the notebook that was now facing him and his senpai who was sort of half leaning against his shoulder and hiss-sighed, putting his face down to the table in his arms. Unlike Mizuki, he didn’t really want to know what Inui was writing in that notebook half the time.
“Momoshiro, Takeshi!”
“Gryffindor!”
A fourth walking disaster joined the other three that were still vibrating away at the Gryffindor table. Over at Slytherin, Inui mumbled something about the time it would take for them to total the entire table. Beside him, Kaidoh and Mizuki both shuddered, thankful that they weren’t in Gryffindor.
“Mukahi, Gakuto!”
“Gryffindor!”
Mukahi tore the hat off of his head with a loudly screeched “WHAT?!”
“You mean I have to be in the same house as Kikumaru?!”
“You mean I have to be in the same house as THAT?!” came the yell from the Gryffindor table at the same time.
The two redheads immediately turned and glared at each other.
“What the hell do you mean by that, Kikumaru, you lousy second-rate acrobat!”
“Who the hell are you calling second-rate?! Everyone knows I’m much better than you!”
“Like hell! I’m ten times more flexible than you!”
“That is such a LIE! I’m SO much more bendy than YOU!”
The yelling contest was suddenly interrupted by two voices from the remaining Psidai students at the head of the room.
“Eiji! Calm down!” Oishi called out.
“Gakuto! Shut up already!” Oshitari called out likewise.
The two acrobats immediately turned their attentions to their respective boyfriends.
“But Oishiiii!” Eiji whined loudly. “Did you hear what he said!?”
“Yuushi! What the hell are you doing telling me to ‘shut up’!?” Gakuto demanded.
But before the two-person argument could devolve into a four-person argument, Tezuka stepped in once more.
“Kikumaru! Be quiet.” Eiji’s mouth snapped shut and he dropped into his seat sulkily.
“Mukahi!” came the clear though bored command from the Slytherin table. “Sit down and shut up. I want to get this farce over with.”
Mukahi stormed over to the Gryffindor table and sat down as far away from Eiji as he could. Though the two of them were still glaring at each other the entire time.
McGonagall, who had been about to reprimand the two new Gryffindors, snapped her mouth shut. Snape, who had likewise been about to use the chance to take points from Gryffindor, was giving Atobe a surprised and thoughtful look.
“Niou, Masaharu!”
“Slytherin!”
“Ohtori, Choutarou!”
“Hufflepuff!”
The Hufflepuff House erupted into cheers once again for the third person to be sorted there, as opposed to the six or seven that had already been sorted into the other houses. Ohtori blushed at his welcome and thanked everyone profusely.
“Oishi, Shuichiroh!”
Oishi walked up to the Sorting Hat. But scarcely had his hand touched the hat when it declared loudly, “Hufflepuff! Most definitely a Hufflepuff!”
Oishi blinked at the hat and slowly withdrew his head. “Anou… thank you, Hat-san?” he said sheepishly, and bowed slightly to both McGonagall and the hat before moving toward the Hufflepuff table.
“But Oishi!” Eiji suddenly called out from the Gryffindor table. “We’re in different houses!”
Oishi paused in his steps and smiled to his partner. “It’s okay, Eiji. I’m sure we can visit each other.” Many of the Psidai students shuddered quietly at the concept of the Golden Pair ‘visiting’ together.
“Oh, okay!” Eiji’s mood did a 180 and he plopped back into his seat again, already planning his first foray into the Hufflepuff dorms.
“Why are we in the rodent house again?” Oishi’s seishuku spirit suddenly popped out and asked when Oishi sat down. “Anything else would’ve been better than that!”
“Tomo Boshi-san!” Oishi admonished sternly. “That’s not nice. Just because you dislike a certain species doesn’t mean you should malign someone else’s group mascot…” He immediately launched into a semi-lecture, which sent Tomo Boshi scurrying back into its host.
“Oh, my word!” squealed Madame Sprout up at the front table. “I think I like that one!”
“You would,” Snape muttered and rolled his eyes.
“Oshitari, Yuushi!”
“Ravenclaw!”
“Damn it, Yuushi!” Mukahi called out from the Gryffindor table. “You’d better come over often or I’m moving into your room!”
Oshitari sighed and rubbed his temples.
“Saeki, Koujirou!”
“Gryffindor!”
“Sanada Genichirou!”
Sanada silently walked up to the Sorting Hat. He picked up the flamboyant piece of headdress distastefully. Some of the Psidai students perked up, sensing that something big was about to happen again.
“Genbu.”
The entire room quieted when a deep black aura began to expand out from Sanada, centered on his chest. The inky blackness rose high into the air, before toppling to the side.
BOOM!
The huge obsidian turtle-like creature crashed onto the ground next to Sanada, shaking the floor with his impact as he landed on his shell, with four thick limbs flailing in the air.
“Oh, look, it’s the wyrm wannabe,” drawled Suzaku into the stunned silence. “Show some bloody class, Genbu, you klutz!”
“Shut up, Suzaku!” came the deep booming voice. A long serpentine tail and neck emerged from the two ends of the turtle shell, and together served to flip the large creature right side up.
A large reptilian head at the end of a long serpentine neck craned down to regard Sanada. The former Rikkai fukubuchou held up the hat that Atobe had altered.
“Change it. Something simple.”
Genbu blinked slowly. The air around the Sorting Hat wavered for a moment, and then it shrunk down into the form… of a baseball cap.
“You have no taste, Sanada!” Atobe called out indignantly from the Slytherin tables.
Sanada ignored him and exchanged his cap for the new Sorting Hat. There was a moment’s pause as the hat considered.
“Sly… Gry… Sly…”
“You’d better not end up in the same house I’m in, Genbu, you clumsy disgrace of all things mobile!” snapped Suzaku.
“Quit your bickering, Suzaku,” Genbu snapped back, “it’s not like the hat’s sorting by my personality!”
“Well, my host doesn’t want your host in the same house as him too!” Suzaku declared for Atobe. Genbu rolled his eyes.
Momo leaned over to Eiji with a whisper that was far too loud and carrying. “Ne, Eiji-senpai, but wasn’t there that rumor about Sanada having a thing for Atobe?”
“Hoi. You’re right,” mused Eiji thoughtfully.
Sanada twitched where he sat. The hat immediately decided that Slytherin was definitely not the place for him.
“Hufflepuff!”
There was much loud cheering from that table as the Hufflepuffs realized that they had just gotten one of the more powerful the exchange students. Sanada walked towards the table, but stopped when the heard the first booming step following him. Turning, he addressed his spirit guardian.
“Genbu, stop shaking the ground.”
Genbu slowly blinked again, before shrinking down into chibified form and floating into the air, his stubby limbs shimmering into the paddles of a tortoise. He more or less swam through the air at shoulder level as he followed his host to the Hufflepuff table.
“Sengoku!”
“Gryffindor!”
“Lucky!” Sengoku commented as he sat down near several Gryffindor girls.
His feline spirit pranced around over his head. “Yeah! House of the cats, baby!” It jumped around to cavort with the two other Byakko seishuku there.
“Shishido, Ryou!”
“Hufflepuff!”
Atobe blinked. “You have got to be kidding me.” He had quickly figured out most of the criteria the Sorting Hat used to separate out the houses. And in his opinion, Shishido was certainly not a Hufflepuff.
“Pfft,” Suzaku remarked caustically. “You know the hat put him there ‘cause it knows putting him anywhere else will probably get the room leveled, if not the whole castle.”
Several of the professors who heard the comment shot uneasy looks at Shishido, who was quite obvious to it all as he sat down next to Ohtori and immediately monopolized his kouhai.
“Tachibana, Kippei!”
Tachibana strode confidently up to the hat with the great hulking form of Byakko following at his heals. The Gryffindors watched avidly, eager in their conviction that someone with a tiger spirit must surely end up in their house.
“Hufflepuff!” announced the hat after a small pause.
“WHAT!?” roared Byakko. “The RODENT House?! Why the hell not the cat house, damn it?!” He unknowingly echoed the same question that many of the disappointed children from Gryffindor house were also asking.
“Oh, quit your whining, Byakko,” Suzaku snapped. “At least it’s still an animal of the same class as you!”
“I’m a carnivore!” Byakko growled back, growing in size as he became more irritated. “I don’t belong in a house of bloody vermin!”
“Too late to talk now, you hypocritical pussy!”
“Well, actually,” Inui muttered from elsewhere at the Slytherin table, “badgers also belong to order Carnivora…”
“Sshhhh!!” Mi Boshi and Amefuri Boshi hissed at him in unison, with the latter shooting nervous looks at Byakko. One really didn’t argue with a Greater God Beast for one’s health.
Tachibana took off the Sorting Hat and looked up with a stern stare. “You have a problem, Byakko?” he asked flatly.
Byakko blinked down at his host, before suddenly shrinking down to the size of a house cat.
“No, no problem at all…” The cat-sized tiger squeaked, and then followed obediently at Tachibana’s heels to the Hufflepuff table.
“Whipped!” sniggered Suzaku.
But then his attention was abruptly diverted when McGonagall called out, “Tezuka, Kunimitsu!”
All the Psidai students watched with bated breath as Tezuka walked up to the Sorting Hat. Seiryuu left his shoulder and expanded until his long body encircled the entire room several times, floating at nearly ceiling level above everyone’s heads and the floating candles. Only his head dipped low to hover next to Tezuka.
“You’re not seriously going to wear that, are you?” Seiryuu asked of his host as Tezuka picked up the baseball cap.
Tezuka considered the question for a moment before holding out the cap to the dragon spirit.
“Return it to its original state.”
Seiryuu opened his maw to comply, but suddenly shut it again. “Wait. Do you mean return it to the shabby state it was in before Suzaku first changed it? Or do you mean return it to the state it was right after it was first created by the Hogwarts founders?”
“The latter.”
“Okay.” Seiryuu exhaled and a large cloud of opaque mist engulfed the cap. When it dissipated, the Sorting Hat was back into the form of a large wizard’s pointy hat, except in crisp and brand new condition.
“Whew-wow!” exclaimed the Sorting Hat. “I haven’t felt that refreshed since forever!”
The Hogwarts teachers and students were gaping in awe.
“Damn it, Tezuka!” Atobe snapped, clearly unimpressed, “don’t you have any taste either?!”
Tezuka ignored him and put the hat on.
“Oh… wow…” stuttered the Sorting Hat, and that was all it said for a long while.
“What the hell do you mean, ‘oh wow’, you stupid hat,” Suzaku screeched as he suddenly shot up to room-size as well. “Where are you sorting him?!”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” rumbled Seiryuu through slitted eyes.
Byakko and Genbu, still in their chibi forms, turned to look at each other across their hosts’ shoulders.
“This won’t end well.”
“Probably.”
Meanwhile, the Sorting Hat visibly gulped at the searing glares coming from both major beast-gods.
“Err… well, Tezuka-san does have more than enough courage and, my goodness, fame, for Gryffindor… but he also has more than enough ambition, ruthlessness, and drive for Slytherin… though, his work ethic and unswerving streak of determination and loyalty to his people and causes is such a Hufflepuff trait… and yet, he’s also got a brilliant mind that would be perfectly at home in Ravenclaw… and… um… well, since he can’t be sorted into all four houses, I suppose… err… his most dominant personality and traits is really the most suited for… Hufflepuff.”
“What was that?!” Demanded the two spirits, who weren’t sure they heard that last mumbled word correctly.
“It said, Hufflepuff,” Tezuka calmly told them, staring both spirit guardians down in case either tried to destroy the Sorting Hat for doing its job.
For a moment, everyone gaped in surprise, especially Seiryuu and Suzaku, who were simply gaping at Tezuka.
“Wha? …B-b-but…” Suzaku had been reduced to speechless stuttering.
Seiryuu was slightly more eloquent. “NOOOOOOOooooooooo!!” He suddenly shrank down to chibi size and veritably sobbed into Tezuka’s shoulder. “But I wanted to be in the same house as Suzaku!”
“WAAAHHHH!” Suzaku shrunk and fled back to Atobe.
The other Psidai students, out of long experience, collectively winced. They were never going to hear the end of this one.
The Hogwarts students and teachers, however, were quite confused.
“I thought he said earlier he didn’t want to be in the same house as the phoenix?” was the general whispered comment.
McGonagall merely shook sighed in exasperation and shook off her puzzlement. She managed to finish sorting the last three Psidai students, Yagyuu, Yanagi, and Yukimura, into Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw, respectively, without much ado, since the usual agitator of events, Suzaku, was still sulking, and the Genbu seishuku spirits of the last three Psidai students knew better than to attract attention to themselves at this point.
Meanwhile, even as Dumbledore cleared his throat and gave his usual pep talk to the assembled room and started off the Sorting Feast, Seiryuu continued to sob quietly next to Tezuka despite the best efforts of Byakko and Genbu to cheer him up. The same sobbing, coupled with more incessant whining, was coming from Suzaku. Finally, Atobe had enough.
“Oh for god’s sake!” he exclaimed, sweeping up from his seat and stalking over to where Tezuka sat between Sanada and Tachibana.
He stopped next to Sanada. “Move.”
Sanada glared right back at Atobe. “Why should I?”
Instead of explaining, Atobe merely shoved him out of the way, before sitting down next to Tezuka.
“Are you happy now?” he demanded of Suzaku, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
But Suzaku and Seiryuu were too busy curling up in happiness to hear him.
Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis. I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own GATE manga, though the actual constellations and mythology we're using is probably public domain.
Addendum: Added the girls goggling over Ohtori and snipped a few parts to make the word count 5666. XD
Addendum (6/2/05): Corrected the name error for Kentaro and some other stuff.
