Ceyrai Says: I used to be thoroughly obsessed with the Naruto fandom – particularly with the pairing of Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura. Well, now, I'm a little bit over that obsession, but I still can't help visiting that fandom from time to time. I went to the Naruto section of Fanfiction Net and found this cute, well-written fic that was both SasuSaku and RyoSaku. What are the odds, right? So I couldn't help but make one – this time, set in the Prince of Tennis universe.

It's like… a fanfic of a fanfic. Heh.

Notes:
Pair: RyoSaku
Universe: Canon, about a few months after the Nationals and a couple before Ryoma goes back to the US.Maybe disregarding the second manga series?
Warnings: A Naruto pairing – Sasuke x Sakura, to be exact.
Rip-offs: The Naruto manga, obviously. Particularly Volume 21, Chapter 181. Most SasuSaku fans would know what I'm referring to here. And Annie Sparklecakes's ficlet collection, The Drawing Board, particularly Chapter 10, Sasuke and Sakura, Connections. I recommend you to read the collection – well, if you knew the Naruto series, anyway. (And the authoress changes her name often, so just keep a sharp eye peeled.)

Additional Notes: The second chapter of New Prince of Tennis stated that Ryoma went to the US three days after the Nationals and came back after an unspecified period of time, but sometime before the third years graduated from Junior High. So we really don't know if Ryoma is going to spend the rest of the school year in Japan. But in this fic, let's pretend he stays till the third years graduate.

Disclaimer: I don't own TeniPuri or Naruto. Or Mahou Sensei Negima, or Air Gear. All of these manga belong to their respective authors.

The Manga Crossover
what's so interesting about this junk, anyway

It wasn't that he was a hog for her attention. Oh no. That most definitely wasn't the case.

But Echizen Ryoma couldn't help but a feel a tad bit irked that something else was more interesting to a certain wobbly brunette compared to him.

He bounced the neon ball with his left hand, contemplating the possibilities.

But it wasn't that he was jealous.

"Feh."

Of course not.

Because really, what sort of self-respecting athlete, a prodigy at that, would willingly degrade himself and be jealous of a common, unimportant, overrated pastime that a Naruto manga was?

He looked at the white volume with a blond boy in a loud orange jumpsuit in front, currently being perused by Ryuuzaki Sakuno, and gripped his racket tighter.

It was a stupid pastime. Just a stupid kid pastime. Which, apparently, was more important than watching him make leaps and bounds in his tennis progress and wipe the floor with Momo for the umpteenth time.

He was leaving in a couple of months, maybe even for good, and she thought a manga was more important than him. Ch.

Grumbling, he hit the most violent Twist Serve he could muster, the ball hitting Momo squarely under the chin.

The match ended six to two in his favor, and Ryoma walked off the court, tuning out Momo's whining about his aching jaw and the win being a fluke, and Tomoka squealing from behind the fence about how great and invincible he was.

"-and did you see that drive!? It was even more refined than the one he did at that match with Rikkaidai in the Nationals!" the pigtailed girl gushed. "Of course, he didn't really need to go all out against Momo-chan-sempai – well, no offense – but he seemed kind annoyed about something, ne, Sakuno? Um… Sakuno…?"

The shy girl jumped a little. "H-hai, Tomo-chan," she agreed, though she couldn't remember a thing that Tomoka had said.

"Liar," Tomoka huffed. "You weren't even listening." She peered into the manga Sakuno was holding. "What's with the sudden interest in Naruto, anyway? You never liked manga or anime before…"

Sakuno smiled guiltily. "Well, we stayed over at my cousin Sousuke-nii's house during the long weekend, and you know, he had all these manga in his room… next thing I knew, I was hooked."

"You sure read fast, though," Tomoka commented. "Already in Volume 21?"

"Ah," Sakuno said, blushing. "Well, it's only because…"

She didn't get any further with her explanation, because it was then that Ryoma chose to peer over her shoulder as well. "Shonen manga, huh?" he muttered. "So childish."

Sakuno pouted, a little put-off, but her reaction was overshadowed by Tomoka, who had screeched, "Ah! Ryoma-sama! You're so mature, you don't even need to read manga like other boys!"

Ryoma merely grunted in acknowledgement. Ryuuzaki's noisy friend, he figured, didn't need to know that he just didn't prefer Naruto and instead had been… mature enough to have collected all the volumes of Mahou Sensei Negima! and Air Gear to date. (He blushed a little – damn, his old man was rubbing off him good.)

He plucked the book out of Sakuno's hands. "Ah!" she protested feebly.

"What's so interesting about this junk, anyway…" he said, more a statement than a question, flipping the pages carelessly.

"Well, because Naruto's kind of an underdog, and he's very determined to get to his goal through training very hard," Sakuno explained slowly. She was a little nervous about having Ryoma so close, but being able to talk to him, even about something as inane as a shonen manga, already made her day. Tomoka watched interestedly, a grin spreading over her face. "And… um… there's Sasuke too. He's Naruto's rival, and he's kind of cool."

Ryoma found a picture of two boys holding a kunai at each other's throats in the cover of the first chapter. "Th-that's Uzumaki Naruto," she pointed to the blond ninja.

"I know," Ryoma said. How could he not, after all the hype that the most famous ninja manga to date managed to produce?

Sakuno blushed at her faux pas. "A-and that's Sasuke, Uchiha Sasuke," she pointed to the other young boy, who wore a curt expression. "He's very cool – he's a prodigy and the top of his ninja class."

Ryoma was more than a little irritated – what was it that Sakuno found cool about a brooding, arrogant looking, dark-haired prodigy who was nothing but fictional? He didn't think she'd go for that type of guy, anyway, fictional or otherwise. "Ch," he muttered. "He's not even real."

The braided girl didn't seem to hear him. "A-and this one," she pointed to a sad-looking girl in the first chapter, "is Haruno Sakura. She, um, likes Sasuke a lot, but she gets rejected all the time. I kind of pity her."

"So why does she always try?" Ryoma asked, looking disinterested as he flipped slowly through the pages of the battle scenes, some ninja getting covered in weird marks, and more battle scenes.

"Because she really likes him, I think, and maybe he sort of likes her too, but he thinks getting stronger is more important," Sakuno narrated. "They're teammates, and he always protects her, and they're supposed to be very precious to each other…"

"So they're friends."

"Yes."

"Well, if they're friends, maybe he'd come to like her too," Ryoma murmured.

"Yes, I think so too!" Sakuno exclaimed. "But… you know… improving his skills is really very important to him, and he doesn't really care about feelings and things… That's why I pity her…"

"Well, maybe after the end of everything, it'd be her he'd be looking for," Ryoma pointed out. "And he protects her too. That says something."

Sakuno blinked. "Yes, I was hoping that was true…" she said softly. "It would probably make her so happy, to know that she could support him in some ways."

There was a silence. Tomoka only watched, waiting to see how all this would unfold. It was pretty interesting that the two didn't really sense the situation they were in.

"B-but anyway," Sakuno said, breaking the silence, "in this part here…" She got the book from Ryoma's hands and flipped the pages to the right part – the part which drove her to skip volumes 14 to 20 just to read it. "…she confesses to him just as he was leaving for a foreign country, and he rejects her."

Ryoma read the panels. "I love you so much that I can't even stand it, Sasuke-kun!" the short-haired female ninja was screaming, apparently at the top of her lungs. There were a few panels of begging, tears, and stoic-faced Sasuke.

And then, there was the full paged view of Sasuke. "After all this… you're still annoying," Ryoma muttered, reading Sasuke's dialogue.

"It always breaks my heart, that part does," Sakuno mumbled quietly. She had been reading the chapter over and over again. "I'd never want to say goodbye like that…"

A minute of quiet reading later, Ryoma put the manga volume back into Sakuno's hands. "S-so, what do you think, Ryoma-kun?" she asked, hopeful that they might somehow share the same opinion. Not like Ryoma-kun prefers any pairings, anyway.

"Childish," he deadpanned.

Sakuno looked disappointed. She had thought, for moment, that she had somehow connected with him even for a few minutes.

"Anyway…"

Sakuno perked up. "Yeah?"

"He didn't reject her. He thanked her and put her on a bench."

The two girls stared at him as he turned away, pushing his cap downward to hide his eyes. "Besides," he muttered,

"I'd never say goodbye to you that way."

And he walked away, leaving the two girls dumbfounded, trying to look as though he didn't care, but the expression and color of his face would tell anyone otherwise.

And so there really was no need to worry after all, Sakuno.

"Sasuke-kun, I think I'm in love."
That made him sit up, eyes smoldering. "With who?"
"Echizen Ryoma! He is so cute, Sasuke-kun!"
He scoffed, gingerly plucking the book from her hands.
Sasuke and Sakura, Chapter 10, The Drawing Board by Annie Sparklecakes

Ceyrai says: I left the last line ambiguous as to who thought it.

I was a big, big, big fan of Naruto and SasuSaku back in the day (it sounds so long ago, but really, it's probably only long to those who live in the Net everyday), and somehow, I still find myself going back to that fandom time and again. I happen to have that same volume – the only volume of Naruto I'd allowed myself to buy – so I know what I'm talking about. Sort of. I did the dialogue from memory, but the gist is the same. Hey, if you read the chapter over and over again (like Sakuno and I did) you'd memorize it too. (Actually, I also watched that episode at least ten times, in three different languages, because I was just that huge a fangirl.)

Gosh. I love goodbye scenes. They're the one deciding factor of any couple in any fandom with an ambiguous romantic atmosphere.

And Ryoma's manga choices are rather interesting, don't you think? Fufufufu. I think he's really more like Nanjirou than he'd ever let on.

As always, leave a review and win a friend! (Or more RyoSaku oneshots. Either way, you'd be happy, right?)