Prince of Tennis…or just Rikkai Dai.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis belongs to Takeshi Konomi.
Last Chances
Chapter 1: Awakenings
He did not dream often.
But when he did, he dreamt of things ordinary, things like winning Nationals to forgetting his baseball cap. He had never dreamt of a past long dead, a past that he had lived out a few hundred years ago.
So when he did, he failed to realise what it was.
Or maybe it was because he just did not remember that he had a past life.
The first thing he did in the dream was to feel. The night air was still, cooling and slightly chilly after the early evening rain that he somehow knew had taken place. A slight breeze kissed him softly on the cheeks, so gently that it did not even tousle his hair. Faint memories stirred with it, as though trying to rouse from a deep sleep but not quite succeeding. The air was silent, without even a faintest whisper from his surroundings. He opened his eyes, and saw himself standing in a traditional garden. The moonlight streamed down from the cloudless night sky, illuminating his surroundings with a pale glow. He turned around and saw a magnificent house, the moon hovering high above it. The house was traditional, and had a nagging feel of familiarity to him, but he could not pull it up from the deep recesses of his memory. The harder he tried to remember, the more it slipped away from him. Slowly, he found himself aware of the scent of incense. The sweet fragrance, entwined with wisps of smoke was so achingly familiar, yet he could not place it.
Then he heard it. It was faint at first, then gradually louder. The strains of melody from a flute came from around the corner of the house, and the song rang in his mind.
He knew this, sad, melancholic song.
He knew how the emotions this song evoked was a mirror to the emotions felt by the person playing it.
He did not know the words to the song anymore, just the haunting tune that bore the same disturbing sense of familiarity that the house and the smell of that certain incense created.
And in his dream, he who had long forgone crying, wept to remember.
"And so I think we should...Sanada? Are you alright?"
Sanada Genichirou raised his head slowly to look at his captain, whose normally calm and steady gaze was tinged with worry as he scrutinised his vice-captain. Sanada knew that he had blanked out in the middle of a discussion about their training schedule, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had been in a stupor since he started having odd dreams from three nights ago, but there was really nothing he could do about it. He knew that his parents were worried over their youngest son; they did not know about the dreams, he did not see the point in talking about a dream in which the contents were hazy. He was also aware that his friends and teammates have realised that something was tiring him out, but he would die before telling them. He could almost visualise their reactions, mostly of which consisted of merciless teasing and mentions of girls that his teammates would expect him to go for.
"Sanada, is the wall behind me very distracting? Only you've been staring at it for the past five minutes or so."
Sanada was once again pulled back to reality by that soothing voice, now laced with concern and a tiny bit of exasperation. He mumbled an apology to Yukimura, but his focus just kept slipping. The dreams, they just lapped up all his energy and he always awoke feeling more tired than the night before. When he actually felt up to processing rational thought, it was all spent on trying to remember the actual content of the dream. And then there was that song. It kept playing continuously in his mind, like a rather bloody-minded recording, reminding him that there was something that he desperately needed to remember, but he couldn't for the life of him recall it.
Then there was his tennis, and how his performance was slipping. Yesterday, he had missed a serve, and sent the second one rocketing into Niou's face in the next court. Thinking on that, he did not feel any particular remorse for his accident, as Niou had been one of the teammates that were vocal in their evaluation of Sanada's sudden lack of energy. Yukimura took one look at the fatigue written all over his poor vice-captain and requested that he took a break. Preferably for the rest of the day, before he injured anyone fatally. At any other period of time, Sanada would have cringed at the thought of skiving off from training while his teammates exhausted themselves out, but that day, he just nodded bleakly without any protesting, and collapsed on the bed the minute he reached home.
"Sanada!"
He blinked awkwardly at Yukimura, and just remained silent. Yukimura sighed softly, before standing up. "It's alright; we'll continue this discussion tomorrow, go home and rest."
Slowly, the dream morphed. He ran towards the soft, melodious music, crystal clear against the silence that surrounded him. As he turned the corner, he saw the entrance to a room dimly lit up by a paper lantern. The sliding door was open, and a young figure with a slender body frame was leaning against it. The figure was clothed in a simple, plain white yukata, made beautiful on the body that seemed to possess an ethereal grace. Arms with skin as fair as alabaster held a long wooden flute, and slender fingers pressed gently on it, moving up and down swiftly and gracefully. The figure's face was in the shadows and try as he might, he could not take a glimpse at it.
"Oi, Marui, fuku-buchou is falling asleep on his feet again."
It had been three days since Sanada had last attended training, and now, walking on the corridors, the boy looked worse for wear. Niou could see him mumbling incoherently under his breath, or sometimes just spacing out, which was something he used to disapprove of. So what could be affecting him so damn much? Niou had put his head together with Marui, and amazingly enough, Akaya, and they had concluded girl trouble. But that was about as probable as Renji opening his eyes, because Sanada just didn't look at girls.
"Don't be silly Marui, he wouldn't like her, are you even sure that he like's girls?"
"Sempai, it could be her."
"Ew, Akaya, please, not even Niou would go near that one."
"Hey! What do you mean-"
"We digress like no one's ever digressed before."
"Shush, Akaya, don't butt in on your sempai."
They had quickly arrived at the conclusion.
"Yukimura Buchou?"
The three chorusing voices made Yukimura looked up from his work with slight forbearance. He wasn't stupid enough to fail to note that the Troublemaking Trio were actually standing next to one another without arguing about whatever it was they usually found necessary to argue over. It was…unnerving and that usually spelled…C-H-A-O-S.
"Yes?"
The Terrible Trio had something up their sleeves. Yukimura could read them like a book, how they all had widespread grins on their face, how they all had their hands folded behind their back in a semblance of innocence, how their eyes gleamed with more prearranged mischievousness than the usual disorganised pandemonium…the list was endless.
"Wellllll, youknowhowSanadaFukubuchou-"
"What? Sorry, please repea-"
"-Is slightly…disorientedatthemoment…"
"It'snotjustusthatnoticed, it'severyone…"
"Sowedecidedthatithadsomethingtodowithagirl, but-"
"…"
"Sanadaisn'tthekindtowell…likegirls. Soweconcluded-"
"If he heard you…"
And all in unison, "Itsyou. Okayjustgotalktohimnow. Bye."
Yukimura watched them turn the corner to his classroom at 250km/h, while wondering if he should laugh or cry. The Terrorising Trio's inclinations towards matchmaking proved rather…disturbing. Looking down at his paperwork again, he found himself thinking about their words. They think I'm the reason Sanada is regularly out of sorts? Well, it was not an unpleasant thought, merely one Yukimura had never considered before. Stretching slowly, he rose from his seat by the window and left the clubroom to find his vice-captain. Best find out what's wrong, at any rate.
Rounding the corner, Yukimura was just in time to see Sanada collapse. Panic blotted out the shrieking of the girls on the corridor, or the exclamations of shock, (Good grief! Sanada collapsed!) and Yukimura forced his muscles to work, running over to help his friend up. Helping up became sitting on the floor and cradling Sanada to himself while sharply ordering the nearest student to get a teacher. The girl scampered off, and Yukimura sat there in a daze. What's happening? Sanada stirred gently and Yukimura looked down and found himself staring straight into Sanada's confused eyes.
"Seichi."
Yukimura froze. Sanada went limp in his arms. Fainted from over-exhaustion…god, what did he call me? Sanada had never called him by name before, it was always Yukimura this, Yukimura that, never Seichi. Yukimura wished that he could just shake off the stupid feeling that Sanada had called him that before, because that was just absurd. The sound of hurried footsteps down the corridor broke Yukimura from his thinking and he looked up to see the discipline master and Renji rushing towards them.
Renji helped Yukimura up, and together they picked Sanada off the floor and supported him to the infirmary. Renji smoothed Sanada's fringe away from his face and turned to Yukimura.
"Sensei is calling his family, he'll be fine, Seichi. Don't worry."
"Ah." Renji gave Yukimura a squeeze on the shoulder and was rewarded with a grateful smile. However, Renji wasn't that dense, he could see that something was bothering his friend, and judging by the way his friend's eyes never left Sanada's face for long… could it be…
Yukimura left the infirmary only after Sanada's parents reached school.
That night when Yukimura dreamt,
He dreamt of rain, pouring down from the night sky. In the dream, he muses silently to himself, comparing the rain to tears.
He dreamt of blood. He did not have to check to know that it was his own. No. Instead, he focused on his surroundings. It was always night, almost to the point of pitch black. He could hear screaming in the distance, frantic screaming that dragged on for what seemed like eternity.
It was the screaming that made each dream a nightmare. He knew that if he just thought hard enough, he would realise why the voice was so familiar.
He could also hear crying, somewhere in the darkness.
That made each dream Hell.
It was still raining.
But the rain was mingled with tears, both his and yet not his.
A.N: Oh dear. This is going worse then expected. Any feedback welcome, you can flame if you want, there's nothing I can do, but I would appreciate your kindness in not doing so. Thank you for reading!