Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis or anything affiliated with it, but I totally played tennis with a friend recently.

AN: It's not Betaed; I'm the only one who's edited it so sorry for any mistakes. This is a continuation of 'His Face' in a look at the aftermath sort of style where each part is an individual mini-story in the same universe.

WARNING: Past character death.

Title: After-Mask

In the first few weeks no one mentioned his new manic approach to tennis practice. Why would they when everyone assumed that Yagyuu was trying to bury himself in something to keep thoughts about the loss of his doubles partner at bay? But when he refused to even hear the words when the other regulars mentioned Niou or the trickster or doubles his teammates slowly started pulling him aside with various attempts at comforting him. Really, he didn't need those oh so casual remarks about how his tennis game seemed to be the least effected by his loss.

Who did Yanagi Renji think he was to try and spew back Yagyuu's data at him? If he was truly as good as he thought he was then he would have known who he was talking to. Of course his playing style hadn't suffered. It was a copy of the real Yagyuu's that he'd been perfecting for years! Little did the data player know he couldn't commit to a copy well enough to trick anyone for long these days. When he, who once was Niou copying Yagyuu and everyone else, practiced on his own his playing style had suffered far more than any of their teammates. No his life, their life, was far more precarious than anyone knew.

He was Yagyuu now and Yagyuu was a gentlman, the gentlman, regardless of how he truly felt. If they only knew, while they gave him pitying looks, that he was slowly losing his sanity stuck as he was in just one life. Before there had always been the escape back into the chaotic life he was born with where no one cared how many pranks he pulled or how often he skipped classes. Now he couldn't afford to slip out of his partner's life for even a moment; he was afraid this most important of masks would shatter in the slightest of breezes.

How much harder could it get? Each day seemed to weigh more and more upon his soul. He asked Yagyuu what he would have done almost daily and half expected to hear a response soon. Yes, it was morbid to keep his best friend's ashes in a place of honor in his bedroom, but it wasn't really his room. He had been Niou the trickster and Yagyuu's ashes, though everyone thought they were Niou's, deserved their place in the room more than he did. No, they truly couldn't understand the overwhelming emptiness he felt every moment of every day. None of them were suddenly missing half of their life, their identity. Yes, each day he felt how much closer he was to losing his mind, or taking his life, as a tangible force. Invisible yet deadly he could sense it pressing closer all the time as he lost bits of his old, original, person.

When the world thought you were dead, and you had to live your partner's life, sometimes you forgot you were still alive. Sure he still tensed when he heard the name Niou spoken but how long before he only responded to Yagyuu? He was just a copy, a pale imitation of one who should have lived, how long until he slipped-up or faltered at the wrong moment? And if he couldn't live as Yagyuu had deserved to? It was a horrible thought that plagued him; he was just the trickster, how could he ever hope to give Yagyuu the life he deserved? He could not afford to even entertain the idea. No one could know. He would make this right and become Yagyuu.