The King of Fighters Tournament

A Clue

Rose and Adel stared at the empty pedestal in surprise before running backstage. Rugal was nowhere to be seen while The Kechaku R still played in the background.
"Is something wrong?" Kyo asked. "Where is he?"
Iori shrugged, just as confused. "Not sure. But this is weird."
The music was over and the younger Bernsteins were still frantically running about, the stagehands bustling around as well. Adelheid eventually stepped forward with a microphone. "Everyone, we may have to cancel this tournament." He paused. "My father is missing."
The crowd of contestants and audience started murmuring in surprise. Rugal was missing.
"But how?" Kyo exclaimed. "And why?"
"Who's even wanna steal Rugal?" Benimaru remarked. "Rugal of all people, how did they even take him?"
"Must've taken taken them a lot," Honoka said. "Rugal is a big guy."
"And powerful too," Aiko added. "Like that guy's Kaiser Wave..."
"Exactly, I'm more scared of whoever that took him than him," Honoka blurted out. "Something's up."
Adel wasn't finished yet. "But we might need some help, whoever that took him, left some clues behind... we can still proceed with this tournament."
"Clues? Gosh, that is one big psycho," Iori snorted.
Kyo stood up. "We should go see what's up?"
"I agree," Benimaru got up as well."
K' looked at them in surprise, holding a piece of beef jerky close to his mouth. "You guys are actually going? Well, why? No Rugal, right? That means no tournament. Let's go home."
Kyo just rolled his eyes and grabbed Benimaru's arm to pull him over to the stage. K' turned to Iori and gestured his hands in confusion.
Iori snorted and shrugged. "Maybe we should go too."
K' groaned and was left to watch him leave, Honoka and Aiko at his heels. "Oh, come on!"
"Let them go," Krizalid shrugged, munching on some butter cookies. "We'll stay here."
But their sister and her team had other plans, apparently.
Zayn groaned as well. "And there goes Seirah and her team..."
"Let them go," Krizalid repeated himself.

The gang caught up with Adel and found him talking to Terry and Rock.
"What's up?" Kyo asked. "What happened? Who took your dad?"
Adel shrugged and handed him a piece of cloth. It had a fragment of a design on it, a strange design.
"I'm not sure what this is," Adel said. "But I found it in Dad's dressing room."
"Where's your sister?" Aiko asked.
Adel sighed. "She's backstage, Ash and Elisabeth are trying to calm her. She's hysteric."
Aiko nodded and ran off.
To their surprise, Ukyo Tachibana and the Ruru sisters arrived as well.
"I knew you'd be here," Ukyo said, going over to Iori. "Been looking for you since we landed."
"Why?" Iori asked confused.
They were even more surprised when Ukyo pulled out a very nicely done embroidery artwork of a Red Crescent in the beautiful night sky and gave it to Iori. The redhead stared at it, unsure of how to react.
"And I also have to return this," Ukyo said, lifting Iori's hand to place a book on it. "I don't like this. Why did you think I'd like something like this?"
Iori looked at the rest and inwardly groaned when he realised that all eyes were on him, the topic averted to something that heavily strayed from the important issue.
Iori turned back to Ukyo and put an arm around him as he brought him aside. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
Ukyo nodded politely. "Sure, what is it?"
"Ukyo, are you not aware that something majorly wrong is going on?" Iori asked.
Ukyo looked confused. "Uh... no? We just came in. What happened? Did we miss anything?"
Iori groaned. "Ukyo, the host of the tournament has been abducted and you're here criticising a lousy book!" He shook the book close to Ukyo's face, much to the other man's surprise. "Ukyo, seriously, this is some bad timing."
"Someone abducted the host?" Ukyo was only now aware of the issue. "But why?"
"That's what we're trying to find out too," Iori sighed. He relaxed a little as he looked at Ukyo again. "How's your tuberculosis?"
Ukyo nodded. "Better. Way better. I don't feel anything now."
Iori nodded too, relieved. "Good. Also, about this book." He lifted it again. "I gave it to you because I didn't like it either. I'll just get rid of it. Maybe I'll give it to someone else who might like... scandals..."
He spotted the Ruru sisters making their way backstage to check on Rose and ran to them.
"Nako, wait!" Iori called as he ran to them. He handed the book to the older sister. "Here, give this to Rose. It might distract her a bit."
Nakoruru looked at the book and smirked. "Isn't this the book that you gave to Ukyo-san?"
"The one he hated?" Rimururu added.
"Yeah, but Rose might like it," Iori said. "Just give it to her. Let her read it."
Nakoruru shrugged and went to find Rose, her sister at her heels. Iori turned back to Adel.
"I think I know what this logo is," Rock looked up from his phone. "Adel, is this one of the battle locations?"
Adel looked at Rock's phone when he handed it to him, and nodded. "Yes. It's one of the first-round locations. I'm not sure which team, need to check on that."
"How do we check?" Benimaru asked, pulling out his phone.
"It should be in your inboxes, we had it sent to all contestants," Adel said.
Kyo nudged Iori. "Yagami, it's us. It's the first-round venue for The Sacred Treasures team."
"Against who?" Iori craned his eyes to look at Kyo's phone. He gasped. "The Ninjas' Team? Ninjas as in... Kisaragi?"
Kyo nodded. "Kisaragi, Malin, and Bandeiras Hattori."
Iori groaned. "Not again..."
"Get a load of ours," Terry snorted, coming over with his phone. "We're up against the Kanes and... Joe."
Iori couldn't help but laugh at that. "The Kanes! Wait, who are Dash and gang gonna fight against?"
Kyo snorted. "The Psycho Boyz team."
"The Psycho Boyz?" Terry said in surprise. "Does that mean that the Psycho soldiers split?"
"Apparently..." Kyo shrugged. "This is gonna be funny."
"Yeah, you know what would be funnier?" Iori smirked. "Breaking the K' Team's bubble. They think the tournament has been cancelled and they can go home."
"I'd like to see that," Benimaru smirked. "Also, I'll wait here since the girls are still trying to comfort Rose."
Iori frowned slightly, but nodded.
"Let's go," Iori took the confused Ukyo with him as they made a beeline back to the K' team.

"We can't go home?" K' groaned. "No!"
"Yes!" Zayn was actually happy.
K' turned to the younger man in surprise. "Why are you excited?"
Zayn shrugged. "Because is my first tournament that isn't a dream match."
Krizalid nodded in agreement. "Same. This is our comeback tournament."
"Fine," K' sighed. "Who did you say our first opponents are again?"
"The Psycho Boyz," Iori smirked when K' groaned. "I think it's Kensou, Bao, and Chin."
Iori laughed when K' groaned after each name.
"Those idiots, they are annoying," K' shook his head, annoyed. "Why them?"
"So you think it would be hard for us to beat them?" Zayn nudged him, smirking.
K' quickly shook his head. "Nah. I just hate them. Always sticking their ugly noses in places they don't belong."
"And they're smelly too," Iori added in agreement. "Always carrying around that... that stuff they love drinking. It stinks so bad!"
Krizalid shuddered. "Yeah... and he's always staggering around too. And you guys thought I'm a bad drinker. At least I only do it at home."
"Yeah, he's right," K' nodded and got up, rolling his neck as soon as he did. "Oh well, I guess we should just beat them up to a pulp, then."
"Yeah, you deal with them, we have to find Chizuru..." Kyo said.