A/N: I have a million fics in the works - some of them not even published yet - and I cranked out this.
It's a sin to be creative.
I can't believe it. I won!
A academy tennis player laughed along with his opponent as they departed from the court for the indoor refreshments. This last victory secured him in the top eight of a pro national tournament, and for a high school senior, his future as a professional player was looking up. His opponent agreed that their match was a challenging but rewarding one as they stepped indoors, just before––
BAM!
The much taller between them - who hadn't been facing forward - accidentally struck his head on the lintel of the doorway.
He fell into a coma and died hours later.
No…this isn't how I'm supposed to go… he futilely denied. I was just getting started….
Indeed, he had literally died for tennis, near a place of tennis, while thinking about tennis. The star of fortune couldn't have had a greater kick out of his loss.
But the star of tennis couldn't have found a more deserving tennis player.
That was why, when the young victor's awareness returned, a white ceiling greeted him.
Where…?
The room of a middle school clinic.
He jolted upright in his cot and immediately felt dizzy, and not just from the blood rushing to his head. Knowledge flowed easily in his mind without prompting, knowledge that should have been unfamiliar.
What am I––?
Aono Takara, first-year middle school student, newly enrolled into Rikkaidai.
The heck? He didn't know any Aono –– no, that was him. He was just starting middle school, remember? Except after a long trek from home to campus on-foot since he was cheap – frugal! There was a difference! – he had fainted not a moment after the end-of-class bell. Honestly, it was remarkable that he had lasted that long without water.
I'm dead.
He had a second chance.
Like a true idiot recognised by the star of tennis, Aono Takara grabbed his school bag and left the clinic for the school tennis courts without a second thought. Startled, the school nurse ran after him, noting the tennis racket in Takara's bag.
"Aono-kun! Drink some water, first!"
Rikkaidai's infamous attraction of quirky tennis players explained the nurse's priorities - or rather his lack of them, concerned only that his record wouldn't be stained by a student death. Honestly, he wasn't paid enough.
Frustrated, the nurse chucked a water bottle at Takara, who spun and caught it with remarkable reflexes.
The heck!?
But the nurse was already returning to the clinic, leaving Takara alone to continue on his way to the courts while internally panicking. The speed of his reflexes was insane –– no, the wolf-like intuition of his was! Being able to sense objects out of sight, much less behind him…didn't that belong to fighter jet pilots!? What's more….
Takara stared at his reflection on the windows he passed.
He looked entirely different, almost unreal.
As unreal as the idea of going to a fictional school like Rikkaidai.
Quiet, you.
It was true, though. Dare he say it, his dorky, fluffy hair belonged in a retro anime? It was the near-bowl cut that plagued the nineties and an ash-grey blonde that could have been the work of dye, but his eyes were the same hue. Good lord, he looked like Roy Rang from Cipher. Except he had larger, more pointed eyes as if to fit an art style –– nO DON'T THINK TOO HARD –– and he had pitifully lost most of his original height. Seriously, where was the rest of him!? Did puberty hit after the first year of middle school in this world? He hoped so. He at least had a few centimeters on the female students of Rikkaidai.
"Are you here for tryouts?"
"Hm?" Takara looked up.
A tennis coach lifted an eyebrow at the boy in a school uniform with a tennis racket and a water bottle in hand.
"Uh…yeah."
The coach pointed to the courts cycling through matches. "Seven victories, and you're in. You've got less than two hours left."
"Thanks, coach."
The man's lips didn't even twitch upwards from a frown.
"I mean, thank you, sir," Takara revised more politely, and dropped his school bag aside. In line for a court, he quickly downed his water bottle, tossed it into a recycling bin, and readied his racket. Playing in a school uniform wasn't unusual, right? Not more unusual than rising from the dead into a world ruled by anime physics, anyway. And of all things he chose to do, it was to continue to pursue tennis.
Truly, an idiot.
"Coach, who's the one consecutively losing his matches with a smile?"
But a tennis idiot.
"Hm, his school bag reads 'Aono,' Yukimura-kun."
Because when Takara had died, the star of tennis looked down upon him and gave him a counter-blessing against that which killed him:
Hyper reflexes and awareness. Because he had obliviously struck his head on a lintel.
Shorter stature. Because his proud height had cost him his head.
And, in respect of his future as a pro that he had lost too soon, his experience and skills dialled up according to anime reality laws.
Takara laughed. "Tennis is fun!"
BAM!
"F-Fifteen forty!"
"What just happened?"
"Did you see him serve?"
"Look, a skid mark!"
"Th-Thirty forty!"
A star was born in Rikkaidai that day.
The tennis player who had been losing his matches like someone from the plain living world finally unlocked an ability that had been waiting for him in the anime world. The Pinnacle of Perfection. A state where all human limits melted away while one was playing tennis. As the numbers flipped and games fell into Takara's lap, his opponent stubbornly dogged after the balls that bounced past the opportunity to be returned, when a racket finally found a ball.
"His opponent caught the ball!"
"He hasn't given up!"
The opponent swung hard.
BAM!
Yet Takara gladly returned it.
BAM!
"Ngh, this power!" Takara's opponent remarked.
The racket went flying, proving that Takara's opponent had to do more than keep up with the ball. What's more, since Takara had a so far unchallenged service ace, the only chance the opponent had of gaining back his lost games was to win the rounds he served.
"Take that!" The ball went flying with a double-forearm for the fence, completely out of bounds.
Despite this, Takara smiled across the net as he leapt up to smash the ball. "Ne, Kirihara-kun, tennis is fun, right?"
SMASH!
The young opponent, one straightforward and ambitious Kirihara Akaya, fell back on his behind, panting but not angry. "Do you ever shut up?"
Atobe, his voice gentle. "Don't you think he's not quite a devil, but an angel?"
Takara grinned back as the final score was announced. "We should play doubles sometime, Kirihara-kun." The star wanted to play with an angel.
No one thought to question how he knew his opponent's name when they hadn't met before. The sight they had just witnessed was that surreal.
Aside, the scorekeepers sweated. Though Takara had won his last match with literally-shining ability, his previous six matches were still losses, and the tryouts time limit was coming to a close, meaning Rikkaidai couldn't add him to the varsity roster. Suddenly, Yukimura walked for the court, silently and regally. Everyone made way for the Child of God. The head coach reached for the captain, and gave up halfway. His whisper was snatched by the wind.
"Yukimura-kun…."
"Aono, correct?" Yukimura called out, jacket fluttering.
Takara and Kirihara looked up from where the former was helping the latter up.
"Yes?" Takara confirmed.
Yukimura took one side of the court.
The Child of God. A one in a million years' existence who was blessed in every respect, favoured by the star of fortune and all stars in alignment. He was destined to overcome even neurological diseases, to be immune to his own yips, and to never lose or drop a single game in his life, ever, until he'd face the eponymous hero of the world Echizen Ryoma. Yukimura was the blessed child destined to represent flawless victory.
The blessed child destined to lose more than half his power in the second installment of the Prince of Tennis.
Honestly, screw canon.
"Win this match, and a jersey is yours," Yukimura declared.
Takara grinned, and light burst from him for a second time that day.
He loved tennis.
A/N: I didn't know how to transfer Takara from our world to the anime one, until I learned that France's Charles VIII once received a killing blow - dealt by himself - in a tennis court. He had hit his head on a doorway so hard that he fell into a coma and died. He was also known as Charles the Affable, and my main character was ironically written as an agreeable idiot before I knew this. I thought it neat to link Takara to the POT theme of nobility in this respect.
As with most of my oneshots, I'm willing to continue this if there's enough demand.
Thanks for reading and please leave a review!