Author's Note: This story is a companion piece to my other two stories Teaching Style and Learning Curve. This story can be read alone but I would reccomend reading those two stories first for contextual information. That being said, I know it had been a long time since I posted the other parts to this series. To be honest, I hit a major writer's block when it came to this story. Fortunately, a friend of mine came up with the suggestion of using prompts to jumpstart my creative juices. And it worked. These prompts were taken from the Fanfic 25 community on Livejournal.

Shout-outs: This is for the people who kept on asking for this story to be written even after a year. Thanks to your encouragement and consistent prodding, I finally got it done.

Warning: In my eagerness to get this posted, I didn't request a beta. Consequently, this remains largely unedited. Like always though, feel free to point out any errors so I can correct them.

Summary: In desperate times, one must resort to desperate measures. Featuring the diabolical but well meaning plotting of the Seigaku Tennis Team. Companion piece to Teaching Style and Learning Curve.

Prompt: #4 Need

Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis. If I did, there would be more matchmakers trying to get Ryoma and Sakuno together.

Desperate Times,
Desperate Men,
and Desperate Measures

The atmosphere in locker room felt tense, a feeling of quiet weariness hovered in the air as the tennis team grudgingly changed out of their athletic clothes and into their regular ones. Each person moved slowly, the stiffness in the muscles reducing their movements to the bare minimum. The practice had been long and difficult with Tezuka barking out orders left and right seemingly indifferent to the hot sun that had been beating down on their backs. They were all exhausted, dehydrated, and more importantly, pissed off. Everyone except for one player.

"See you tomorrow," a smug Ryoma called walking out the door, his bag casually slug over one shoulder. Seven pairs of glaring eyes watched him exit. Tezuka nodded briskly to the remaining players and soon followed the youngest member of the team out the door.

The silence lasted for a few seconds before Momoshiro roughly threw his bag inside his locker. "This sucks!" he shouted.

"What are you going on about?" Kaidoh asked tightening the laces on his sneakers. Normally, he would head out for a run after practice but at the moment, his legs felt as strong as limp ramen noodles.

"That brat," Momo growled, gesturing to the door, "he acts so damn smug nowadays."

"Well," Oishi said dropping his dirty towel into the basket, "his abilities have increased considerably in the past three years."

"He's turned into a freakishly fast tennis machine," Eiji said jumping onto the bench and on top of some of Kaidoh's clothes, "It's unnatural." Kaidoh glared at the sight of Eiji's sneakers on his clean clothes. When Eiji failed to move, Kaidoh struck out an arm and shoved him off.

"So what?" he hissed.

"So what?" Eiji shouted, arms gesturing wildly in excitement, "So what? He's killing us out there!"

"Eiji…" Oishi quietly warned.

The acrobatic tennis player rounded on his partner. "It's true Oishi. That little brat has been wiping the floor with us in practice. And- and it's not fair," he finished with a dramatic pout.

Takashi looked between the upset players. His hand automatically rubbed the back of his head as he tried to figure out a way to calm them down. "It's not all that bad…"

"As a matter of fact, it is," Inui said flipping to a page in his notebook. "Ryoma's abilities in matches have increased by thirty percent and he now only takes a fraction of the time to claim the victory.

"That doesn't sound bad." Takashi commented genially.

"However," Inui continued, pushing up his glasses in mild irritation, "practice injuries have increased by over eighty percent since he rejoined the team in high school less than a couple of weeks ago."

Momo let out a low whistle at the number while Kaidoh hissed. The rest of the team looked at one another in stunned silence.

"So what can we do?" Oishi finally asked, "I mean, we may not like it that Ryoma-kun is winning so much but isn't it for the good of the team that he has become so skilled?"

"Not when the brat keeps injuring us like he is," Momo commented gesturing to Takeshi who had sprained his ankle the week before in a practice match with Ryoma. "At this rate, we'll be too injured to take on our actual competition."

"The problem isn't that Ryoma is skilled," Inui commented, eyes focused on his notebook in concentration, "The problem is that he has no where to direct his focus besides on us."

Momo blinked as he digested his words then nodded enthusiastically in agreement. "Exactly, the damn brat trains from sunup to sundown except when he's in school."

"But what can we do about that?" Takeshi asked.

"Well, hypothetically speaking," Inui said before clearing his throat, "if Ryoma-san had an opportunity to direct his extra attention elsewhere, it would mean he would have less time to improve upon his tennis skills."

"So what do we do?" Eiji prompted eagerly.

Inui closed his notebook with a snap of finality. "We need to provide him with a distraction."