Disclaimer: Neither Kurotaiyo nor Amegato own Prince of Tennis. Assume this disclaimer applies to all following chapters.

Continuation

Introduction

"Oi, Chibi! Over here!" Echizen turned around to see Kikumaru bouncing up and down and Oishi standing quietly next to him.

"Long time no see, Kikumaru sempai, Oishi Sempai," Echizen replied. He walked over and was just about to ask where everyone else was when he was suddenly strangled from behind.

"Echizen! What's wrong with you? I told you to wait for me! I had to be stuck alone with Mamushi here." All three looked up to see Momoshiro smiling happily and Kaidoh glaring at him.

"Kaidoh, Momo! It's so nice to see you, nya!", Kikumaru exclaimed.

"Uh."

"Oi, Mamushi. At least put some more enthusiasm in your voice. We haven't seen Kikumaru sempai and Oishi sempai for a long time!" Momoshiro scolded Kaidoh.

Echizen sighed.

"Ne, where are Kawamaru-sempai and Inui-sempai?"

"They're coming soon," Oishi replied. "Ah, look, they're here!" Kikumaru bounded up to Inui and Kawamura.

"Oi, long time no see, Kawamura, Inui!" Kawamura smiled shyly and waved, while Inui's glasses gleamed as Kikumaru smothered them.

"Eiji is still the same as ever. I'm sorry," Oishi added between laughs. After a while, the laughing died down and Momo spoke up.

"Ne, Oishi, how's Nekogaku with Eiji sempai? It was really lucky that you two got into the same school, unlike everyone else from the tennis club last year."

"It's good," Oishi told him. "I find it a bit hard sometimes, but the tennis team is really good. Eiji and I still play doubles together. Of course, their tennis team isn't nearly as good as Tezuka's or Fuji's schools', but we've been ranked third after them," Oishi replied.

"Third? That's really cool!" Momo responded. Echizen said nothing.

"My high school, Otagaku is fighting for that place." Inui walked up to the three along with Kawamura and Kikumaru. Echizen looked at Kawamura.

"Ne, Sempai, how's Makigaku?"

"It's good, Ryoma-kun. I've learned a lot of sushi techniques and the tennis team there is also fighting for third. Even though I told myself I wouldn't play tennis in high school, I couldn't help but join. I don't play as a regular though. "

Ryoma sighed, "Mada mada dane."

"What?" Everyone exclaimed.

"You guys are just fighting for third? Why not second or first?"

"Ochibi-chan," Eiji stretched out the words, just as he stretched his arms out to the side in mock-defeat. "The first two teams have Fuji and Buchou. They specifically recruit the best players." Ryoma shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh. Well, are we going to see the game or not?"

"Hai!"

The group arrived at the courts just in time to see the match start. Doubles two was up. The former captains of Yamabuki Gakuen and St. Rudolf Gakuen, Minami Kentarou and Yoshirou Akazawa were playing from Fuji's school, Kawada Gakuen against a third-year they didn't know and Eishirou Kite, formerly of Higa Chuu on Tezuka's school, Teishu Gakuen's side. The match went fairly quickly with Kentarou and Akazawa winning 6-0.

"Wah! Good job, Kawagaku!" Kikumaru exclaimed. Momo applauded and suddenly jerked forward.

"Ne, there's Buchou!"

Everyone craned forward and saw Tezuka glaring at them. They all laughed and waved, and Tezuka waved back.

"Hoi hoi! Was that a smile from Tezuka?" Kikumaru hooted. "Nice! All right, where's Fuji then?" Everyone looked around and finally found Fuji talking to a young boy. Kawamura waved.

"Fuji! Over here!" Fuji looked up and smiled (well, he smiled a bigger smile than he was already smiling, at least). He waved and turned back to the boy, gesturing in their direction. When the boy's eyes finally found them, Fuji turned back and smiled some more.

"Hey, who's that guy? Don't you guys think he looks like a girl?" Eiji laughed to his friends.

"He really looks too girly," Kaidoh mumbled.

"Oi, Mamushi! You're actually talking! Jealous that the boy looks more pleasant than you, baka?" Momo teased.

"I am not an idiot!" Kaidoh yelled back.

"Hey, hey, stop yelling at each other," Oishi called over them frantically, trying to calm them down.

Fuji had been sitting by himself when he noticed a new boy sitting nearby.

Oh well, there wasn't much else to do right now, anyways.

He went over and bowed.

"Good afternoon, I am Shusuke Fuji. Pleased to meet you…"

The boy looked up. He had brown hair that looked very similar to Fuji's in style, but the resemblance pretty much ended there. There was something foreign about his face, though Fuji did not know what. Maybe it was the large-by-Asian-standards cat-like eyes, or the unusually pale, seemingly well-tended skin. Besides that, he didn't wear Fuji's customary smile. Instead, he stared at Fuji for a moment or so before squeezing his eyes shut in a smile.

"I'm Kurosawa Sakuya. Nice to meet you," he said quietly. Fuji opened his eyes briefly then shut them again in a smile. There was something off about his voice, too – was it unusually high? - but he let it pass. He'd seen plenty of boys who blurred gender lines all too easily, and this one wasn't that much different from the rest.

"Do you play tennis?" Fuji asked politely.

"No, not that I can remember. I'm allowed to sit here because I'm doing a report for the paper." That statement practically invited further questioning, but Fuji chose not to follow that specific line of thought.

"Is that so? But you're watching it so intently."

"I don't know why, but it sends this thrill through my body when I see others play. I guess that's why I decided to write for the school newspaper – I get a free excuse to watch people play tennis." Kurosawa broke into a wide, don't-look-at-me-I'm-innocent smile, and Fuji decided this could definitely be interesting.

"I see." He nodded gravely, causing Kurosawa to chuckle. "If you don't mind my asking, what school do you go to?" Kurosawa slowly stopped chuckling, trading his innocent smile in for a cocked head and some rather violent blinking.

"Um, yours…" He replied awkwardly. Fuji chose to ignore the awkwardness.

"Ah. I didn't realize it. You're in my year?"

"Yes."

"Fuji! Over here!" Fuji turned his head to find his friends waving excitedly at him. He hadn't expected that. He waved in return, albeit a bit more calmly than his friends were doing. Likely curious about why he just started waving to the stands, Kurosawa turned around as well and gave him a blank look. Chuckling, Fuji pointed at his friends: Momoshiro had just leaned in and shouted something in Kaidoh's ear, and Kaidoh had jumped at him. Fuji didn't need to hear him hissing, he'd seen the scene play out exactly the same way more times than he could count. "Oishi stopped it, didn't he?" He asked Kurosawa, whose eyes were open wide and worried. Kurosawa nodded mutely. "So typical of him. Back on track with our conversation… where were we?"

"Um… I think you asked me if I was in your year, and I said yes."

"Oh, okay then. My name's Fuji Shusuke. I went to Seigaku for middle school, and I'm in your year as well. Which middle school did you go to?"

A panicky sort of look had come over Kurosawa's face, as he stuttered out an "I… don't know."

"Eh?" Fuji asked, a tiny bit triumphant inside. He knew this person was interesting! "How do you not know?"

"I don't remember." Fuji opened his eyes, then shut them again so quickly it was as if he'd never opened them. Something was really odd about this Kurosawa kid.

'This Kurosawa kid' was grinning. Fuji sent him a nonverbal question, and he answered it, seemingly without noticing. "Ne," he said, nudging Fuji's elbow. "That really cool looking freshman on the other team is playing." Fuji adjusted his gaze to see Tezuka calmly walking to the court. "Oh," He realized, "I didn't see who won Doubles One!"

Kurosawa laughed. "We lost," he grinned, shrugging lightly.

Aikawa Ren was at… a tennis game.

She wasn't quite sure why she was at a tennis game. It wasn't even one of her own high school's tennis matches. Looking back, she thought she could vaguely remember one of her friends saying that there was a certain player she called "Fuji-sama" that would be playing. Apparently she just had to be there to watch, and she didn't want to go alone because then it would look to this "Fuji-sama" that she didn't have friends and then there would be no way "Fuji-sama" would ever even consider dating her.

Ah. That was why.

Well, either way, Ren was at a tennis game with her friend Sachiko, who had a celebrity crush on a tennis player by the name of Fuji. Apparently she was supposed to be very upset because this Fuji-sama's school wasn't winning by as much as she'd like. The opposing team, Teishu Gakuen, had won the doubles one match, and Sachiko had gripped onto Ren's wrist so that Ren could feel her friend's nails digging into the flesh of her skin.

…That had been quite painful.

"It'll be all right, Sachiko-chan… If, uh… Fuji-sama's school is as good as you say it is, I'm sure they'll catch up," Ren had assured her friend, hoping that Sachiko would relieve the tension on her wrist. To her relief, it worked, and her friend was now leaning forward in her seat, trying to catch a good view of the game. Digging back into the depths of her mind for some memory of how tennis was played and scored, she pulled out a memory of a time when her parents had tried to send her to tennis lessons. The lessons themselves hadn't been pretty, of course, but she did learn the scoring, and she referenced it to try to make sense of the sport.

There were two people on each side of the court, so it was doubles. Apparently the score was 40-30, with Teishu Gakuen leading. Which was a bad thing, as Sachiko was clenching her fists, looking for something to grab onto. Pushing her hair behind her left ear, Ren made sure to leave her hand in a slightly less accessible position than her side, and settled on leaning it across her right thigh.

The Teishu Gakuen player made the final point of the first match, and Ren watched fearfully, almond-shaped eyes blinking a bit, as her friend made several motions as if she wasn't sure whether to stand up and yell at the referee or strangle someone. She stopped soon, though, to gape, and Ren turned her face back towards the court to find out why.

There was a rather handsome boy, also seemingly a first-year, standing in the court, as well as a not-so-handsome one. Ren was fairly certain that her friend would only be gaping at the good-looking one (Sachiko was a bit superficial like that), but she was also fairly certain that she had said her "Fuji-sama" was on Kawada Gakuen, and the better-looking of the players was definitely wearing a jacket that marked him as a member of Teigaku.

"Ne, Sachiko-chan," she whispered to her friend. "Who are you staring at?"

"Ren-chan, I knew you were clueless, but I didn't know you were this clueless!" Her friend shot back in a perfectly audible stage whisper. "He's Tezuka Kunimitsu-sama, a national-level player! He was in Seigaku with Fuji-sama, and he was the captain of the tennis club! They said he was invincible in his second and third years!" Ren winced a bit at the accusation, but answered neutrally.

"Ah."

And as if the referee had heard her and waited for her to comprehend, he chose that moment to start the game. Tezuka Kunimitsu served. Ren was spellbound.

She knew he was good-looking – if anything, Sachiko did have good taste in guys, and if Ren had turned to the side she would have seen the proverbial hearts blossoming in her friend's eyes. But that wasn't what glued her gaze to the boy as surely as her friend's was; it was the absolute grace with which he played. Few things seemed to catch him off guard, and he moved as if the whole game were a previously choreographed dance that he had practiced millions of times already. The people she had seen play earlier were good (granted, she hadn't exactly paid attention to the first few games), but this Tezuka Kunimitsu was able to return everything his opponent shot at him with twice as much speed from nearly anywhere on the field.

The game was over before she noticed, and only then did she find that her jaw was open and hastily clamp it shut.

"That was really good…" The dark-haired girl muttered, more to herself than anyone else, but her friend replied too.

"Yes, supposedly that's the power of the Seigaku regulars, especially from last year. Tezuka Kunimitsu, the captain, Echizen Ryoma, the first year prodigy, Kaidoh Kaoru, the Viper, Sadaharu Inui, the data tennis player, Momoshiro Takeshi, with his dunk smash, Kawamura Takashi, with his burning serve, Kikumaru Eiji and Oishi Shuichiro, the Golden Pair, and of course, Fuji Shusuke-sama." She said this all in one breath, and inhaled quickly soon after, clasping her hands to her heart as she said Fuji Shusuke's name.

"Ne, Ren? Ren? Are you okay?" she asked, as she opened her eyes expecting to find her friend surprised, maybe, and instead saw what to her eyes was a very exaggerated reaction. Aikawa Ren was staring, almost through her as opposed to at her.

As a matter of fact, Ren was staring at the group of boys in the front row of the stands that Tezuka Kunimitsu was currently waving at. They seemed to be the Seigaku regulars, if the fact that there were six players, one of whom could only be described as short, said anything. Sachiko finally noticed what Ren's gaze was fixed on, and confirmed Ren's suspicions about who that group was. Because one boy in that group looked very familiar to Ren, and Sachiko's earlier mention of his name only proved his identity.

Kikumaru Eiji. And he was wearing a Nekoboushi Gakuen uniform.

Fuji and Kurosawa watched Tezuka play. After the match ended, Fuji turned to find Kurosawa staring intently at Tezuka.

"He's good, used to be the captain for Seigaku, my middle school," Fuji said.

"Ne, that move he did. He didn't even move from his spot. It looks familiar."

"Tezuka Zone? That's one of his signature moves. Ah- I'm up soon." The match ended quickly, with Tezuka winning. Fuji walked to the court where his opponent was waiting and extended his hand in greeting.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Shusuke Fuji."

"Nao," his opponent replied, squeezing Fuji's hand so hard Fuji thought the skin might break. "Hm. So you're the self-proclaimed tensai. You're so girly and thin! How the hell can you possibly beat me?"

Fuji's smile didn't actually change physically, but something in the way he held himself made Kurosawa's eyebrows knit together.

"Let's play."

The game started with Fuji serving. They rallied and Fuji eventually won the first match. Then he won the next, and the next one, and the next one. By the sixth match, Nao seemed pretty desperate. Fuji's Tsubame Gaeshi and Higuma Otoshi had completely thrown him off, and he lost every time Fuji used them.

He snarled. "You may be a genius, but geniuses tend to be very weak."

Kurosawa overheard this and murmured, "What is he up to?"

Tezuka also heard and began to feel nervous for Fuji. Fuji, on the other hand, was not affected. He actually had not been playing his best since he was still wearing his wrist and ankle weights. His coach had told him that this match was just a training match, and he was not to go all out. Nao served the ball and the two began to rally again. Suddenly Kawamura shouted, "Hadokyuu! Fuji, watch out!"

It was too late. The ball went extremely fast and smashed right into Fuji's face, causing him to collapse unconscious. Kurosawa was silent while looking at the faces of the others. Everyone was stunned. Tezuka's face was contorted; he didn't want to attack his teammate, but he was angry at Nao for hurting Fuji. Kikumaru had jumped forward, but was held back by Oishi. Momo and Ryoma were shocked, Kaidoh hissed like crazy, and Kawamura was nearly crying. Inui pushed up his glasses and said, "There is a 98 chance that Fuji will wake up well within the next 10 minutes."

Tezuka sent Inui a quick glance, Momoshiro breathed out in a sigh of relief, and Kikumaru took Oishi by surprise by lashing out behind him at Inui.

"Oi, Inui! Don't you have any feelings?"

"Now Eiji, calm down! Inui was just stating a fact!

Kurosawa had looked like he was about to turn back when he saw a girl running to the court, only to be stopped by her friend.

"Sachiko! You can't go on the court during a game!" the friend said.

"But Fuji sama is hurt!"

"I doubt he feels anything right now, considering that he's unconscious." Kurosawa chuckled at the friend's comment and proceeded to walk to the court. The referee and some other players had moved Fuji to the stands where they started to yell for the ambulance. Kurosawa picked up the ball and the racket that fell out of Fuji's hands.

Kawamura sensed a sudden change in the environment.

"Ne, did you guys notice how the air seems more chilly?"

"It's him," Ryoma replied, pointing a languid finger at Kurosawa. "Something about him feels different."

Kawamura watched, wide-eyed, as the boy that Fuji was talking to before spun around to face Nao.

"Ne, baka! I play for Fuji now. Can you beat me?" The referee was blowing his whistle by the time the words "I play" had left the boy's mouth, but both the boys on the court ignored him.

Nao gaped. "You? Of course I can! You're even more girly than that Fuji dude!"

"Kurosawa!" Kawada Gakuen's coach was yelling to the boy. "You can't play! You're not even on the –" He trailed off, realizing that the boy was ignoring him as well.

Kurosawa snorted. "Baka. You shouldn't judge people by the way they look. Plus, Fuji didn't play with his all." Without waiting for a reply, he served the ball. Nao returned it and they began rallying. Suddenly, Nao hit a hadokyuu.

"Ne ne ne, do you really think I'll fall for that? Try this." Kurosawa brought his racket to his face and blocked the ball. He returned it and Nao ran towards the ball. The ball swiftly swept up in front of Nao's face and out of the stadium. Tezuka nodded his head and said, "Hakugei."

"Ne, baka!" He turned his head in Tezuka's general direction, eyes leaving the ball. "It's not Hakugei." The ball seemed to instantly appear and hit the court. "It's Hana Arashi." After bouncing off the court, the ball hit the unsuspecting Nao in the head. It spun quickly and seemed to dig deeper into his head. Nao screamed in pain and the ball continued to spin deeper. At the scream, Kurosawa turned around and chuckled. "I hate anyone who uses tennis as violence, but in this case, I'll be a hypocrite." He looked straight at Nao as the sun glinted off his eyes, creating a cat-like gleam.

"Ne, baka. If I were you, I would fall face forward. Unless, of course, you want the ball to reach your skull." Nao promptly fell face down and blacked out from the pain. The ball flew straight towards Kurosawa who caught it in the space between the racket and the handle. It bounced lightly, and Kurosawa reached out with his left hand and caught it. Smirking, he walked towards the unconscious Fuji and gently placed his racket beside him. Then he landed on the ground, rear-end first. Kawamura let out a breath he hadn't noticed he'd been holding as all the warmth suddenly seemed to rush back into the stadium.

"Where am I? Why am I here?" Kurosawa looked up at the faces of the stunned players and spectators with a face that suggested that if things didn't start making since soon, he'd be sick.

"Hm. Looks familiar." Kawamura glanced at Ryoma, who had proceeded to lean back and stare up at the sky, frowning a bit. It was conspicuous. Everyone else was focused on the court.

Frankly, Ren was mystified. One moment, Fuji was playing with the same ease Tezuka had displayed (perhaps more, as he seemed to have been playing with his eyes closed. Ren had actually been considering coming to see both of their games regularly), and then the next moment a tennis player had knocked out Sachiko-chan's "Fuji-sama" and someone who… wasn't even a teammate of his just chose to walk up to the court and thrash the offender. Very soundly. And then said person who wasn't even a teammate of "Fuji-sama's" proceeded to forget everything he had done in the past twenty minutes.

Frowning at the court, she foolishly loosened her grip on her friend, who took the opportunity to dash up onto the court, sobbing a chorus of 'Fuji-sama's as she did. Ren blinked, immediately rationalized that she would have let go anyways – for all her superficiality, Sachiko was a lot stronger than Ren was – and then realized that she should probably go up and reason with her friend. She sprinted up onto the court which was now in uproar thanks to Sachiko's persistence in interjecting.

"Ah, I'm sorry," she told the people at the door, who looked at her in a daze, already having been plowed over by Sachiko. "My friend can be a bit overly enthusiastic sometimes…" They didn't seem to notice, but the schoolgirl told each one of them anyway, hoping to at least sound civil.

She was stepping down onto the court now, and feeling the sheer amount of eyes that had to be watching her now. She agreed with what they were probably thinking wholeheartedly – a random schoolgirl had no place on a tennis court in the middle of a game, especially one who had the tennis-playing ability of a flea. But special situations called for special actions, and thus she chose to ignore her own sensibilities. Sachiko was making a bit of a fool of herself right now – she had blown right past a boy that seemed to be just as dazed as the others she'd passed, and practically tackled the unconscious tennis player on the ground (Fuji, not Nao, she clarified mentally).

"Fuji-sama! Are you all right? Are you alive?"

"Ah, I'm very sorry, Sachiko-chan's a bit overly enthusiastic sometimes…" Ren told the boy standing to her left – the one that Sachiko had brushed past – her eyes trained on the ground in order to avoid the stares of the crowd and only the general direction of her gaze indicating who she was speaking to. He turned around to face her, rather slowly, and she slapped herself internally for her lack of courtesy. The dark-haired girl slowly lifted her gaze, a small smile on her face in apology. She could see the black uniform, the badge on the right side of the boy's shirt that labeled him a student at Kawada Gakuen, the same school as Fuji Shusuke attended, the tips of his chocolate-brown hair that ended just beneath his chin, and she was almost at his face…

"…Eh?"

Ren's eyes locked with the Kawagaku student's as she forgot about courtesy entirely. Her smile slowly faded away and became a light frown. The boy was unusually feminine, pale-skinned with delicate facial structure not unlike Ren's own, but what truly captured Ren's attention were his eyes.

Ren had been complimented on her eyes before. Slanted eyes weren't uncommon, as she did live in eastern Asia, but eyes so large and perfectly almond-shaped even after the face had lengthened and become properly angular were. Her mother had told her once in a fit of nostalgia that her mother (Ren's grandmother) had been famous for those eyes when she was younger, earning her the pet name of "Neko-chan", and Ren's mother herself had the same cat's eyes, large and round and slanted. Looking into this boy's eyes was almost like looking into a mirror, and Ren was surprised to see them.

"Hoi, hoi, looks like Fuji's up!" A voice behind the cat-eyed boy spoke, and Ren glanced upwards towards the stands to see the boy she had previously identified as Kikumaru Eiji before taking note of his words and turning her attention back to Sachiko and her beloved "Fuji-sama". Fuji's eyes were wide open for a fraction of a second, and Ren caught a glimmer of brilliant sapphire blue before they shut again into a friendly smile and he sat up.

"Sachiko-chan, we have to get off the tennis court. We're interrupting a game," Ren kneeled down and whispered into her friend's ear, hoping this would be enough to satiate her.

"But Fuji-sama's here," Sachiko answered persistently, and Ren sighed in response.

"If you keep making a scene like this, the whole world will think you're a raving lunatic, Sachiko-chan. There will be more tennis games where you can watch Fuji-sama, okay?" Sachiko nodded slowly, reluctantly, and Ren held back a sigh of relief.

"I'm very sorry for the trouble," she told Fuji, who had turned his head in the direction of his former teammates, not looking much bothered at all.

"It's okay," he replied in an unexpectedly light voice, eyes still not visible. "This could be interesting."

Pondering what on earth the tennis genius might have met, Ren tugged on Sachiko's arm, said goodbye, and made her way out of the stadium, friend in tow.

Fuji looked up at a blinking Kikumaru. Eiji didn't really shut up much, so it was a bit surprising to see him stunned for a moment. He followed Eiji's gaze and found himself looking at the dark-haired girl who apologized for her friend, Sachiko. Intrigued, he turned back to see Eiji nudge Oishi in the side and whisper something.

They weren't being much more open about this, but he'd find out later. For the time being, Fuji turned his attention back to the court. Nao had somehow fainted and was being carried to the stands for medical aid. This was interesting.

"Hey, what happened?"

Someone in front of him twisted around and looked down at him. It was Kurosawa.

"What's going on? Why am I standing here? Why is that guy unconscious?" Fuji stared at her.

"I don't know. I was unconscious as well."

"Really? Oh yeah, I remember now. You were knocked unconscious by that dude. But I forget what happened after that."

Momoshiro seemed to have heard him from the stands.

"Hey, do you remember anything? It was you who knocked him out!"

Kurosawa shook his head.

"I don't remember. How could I have knocked him out?"

He looked around to see everyone gaping at him.

"Are you kidding me?" Everyone said in unison. Just then, the captain of Teigaku, Yamaguchi Akira, angrily stormed up to Kurosawa.

"Oi! I'll kill you, you meddlesome brat!"

He swung his racket, but fortunately Kurosawa managed to grab the racket before it hit him. Fuji shivered involuntarily and watched, interested.

"That aura," Oishi was saying up in the stands. "It's just like before. Is he like Kawamura?"

Yamaguchi looked slightly frightened. Kurosawa lifted up his head and sneered.

"Ne, baka, watch where you swing that racket. I am on the boxing team, and I'm not afraid to use my fists if I need to."

Akira wrenched his racket from Kurosawa's grip and stumbled backward. Almost immediately, the deathly aura vanished and Kurosawa stood looking confused again. He looked at the scared Akira and then at Fuji. He scratched his head and laughed.

"Guess I have short term memory loss, ne?" As he walked away, he felt all eyes watching him. It made him somewhat uncomfortable and he looked down and quickened his pace.

"Eh?" Kurosawa looked up and jerked in surprise. A girl was standing in front of him, running her hand through her hair in what Fuji decided was probably a nervous gesture.

Hm, Fuji decided. This Kurosawa is an interesting character.