Take Two

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"See? There it is! Right between 'no jewelry' and 'no drugs'!"

"Oh, this is dreadful! You were right after all!"

"Is there a problem?" Asked Yukimura in a silky voice.

"Yeah," Coach Ryuzaki looked up at the two teams Seigaku and Rikkaidai from where she and Kirihara had been examining the rule book of tennis. "We were just reading through this book, and it turns out that incapacitating one or more senses of the opponent is actually against the rules."

"Wouldn't have dreamed it possible!" said Yukimura. "But the match is over now. What does it matter?"

"Well, it lends a sort of invalidity to your ultimate championship tennis match with Ryoma, since cheating was going on." Ryuzaki explained.

"But why do we care if Yukimura cheated?" Echizen cut in, "I won anyway."

"Don't get too excited," warned Kirihara, "It looks like fog machines aren't allowed either, so you cheated, too."

"It wasn't a fog machine, it was Muga no Kyouchi!!" Echizen screamed.

Everyone ignored him. His story made no sense.

"So what do you propose we do about this?" Tezuka finally asked. "This basically renders the final match between Echizen and Yukimura invalid. So who wins the championship?"

"Maybe we should have a rematch," Suggested Yukimura hopefully.

"Why so eager?" Echizen retorted. "I'll just win again, won't I?"

"Not necessarily," Yukimura replied, looking mildly annoyed, "I feel quite confident about my chances this time. After all, apparently all I had to do the whole time was fucking say, "tennis is fun"."

"Well, this isn't up to you guys!" Ryuzaki interrupted. "I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not confident about my ability to watch another match between those two and not die of boredom, cliché overdose, or old age. We need an alternate solution."

"Like what?" Everyone asked suspiciously.

"Hmmm....." Ryuzaki thought. "Give me a few minutes. I'll think it over."

When she came back from her deliberation, Ryuzaki wore a strange smile that instantly alerted all the boys present that whatever was to follow would mean a gigantic pile of horrors in their futures.

"I have great news," she said, "I've had a wonderful idea! I've thought of a great way to determine the winner of the championship!"

"We're screwed, aren't we?" asked Echizen.

"Yup!" she said. "It's my most brilliant plan yet, if I do say so myself!"

"You might as well, because I can assure you no one else is going to." Tezuka said.

"Tezuka, shut up before I break your other shoulder." Ryuzaki said, without even looking at him.

Tezuka shrugged.

"So," said Ryuzaki, stretching, "here's the idea: since we obviously can't count the match between Echizen and Yukimura, the championship is left hanging. Thus, I'm going to set up a series of challenges that each team will have to participate in. You will work your way through these challenges, being judged along the way, and at the end I will evaluate which team did the best over all, and that team wins the tennis championship!"

The boys, who had been holding in their feelings up until then, fell to the ground and tore at their hair.

"Oh, it's more terrible than I could ever have imagined!" Marui screamed, eyes streaming.

"Come, it's not all that bad." Said Ryuzaki. "Since you guys screwed up the final match, this is the fairest way to determine the winner. We're just sort of...taking two. And I'm sure it will end up being fun."

"FOR YOU!" Everyone screamed.

Ryuzaki seemed unfazed. "I haven't even got to the next part yet," she said. "I can already tell that I'm going to get bored of you guys relatively soon. Thus, we're going to have to spice these challenges up by bringing in some special guests."

"Guests?" the two teams echoed.

Ryuzaki snapped her fingers. Out of nowhere pranced Atobe, Sengoku, Tachibana, Aoi, Akazawa and Shiraishi.

"So to make things a little more interesting, you're all going to have to pick other teams to be a part of your team for later participation." Ryuzaki announced, beaming at the looks of horror on the faces of the Rikkaidai and Seigaku boys. "We'll do it gym class style: each captain stands in a line and we'll take turns picking so that the last person chosen feels bad. It'll be swell."

As if on cue, the captains marched before them and they lined themselves up neatly side by side.

"Right." Said Ryuuzaki, "Rikkaidai and Seigaku, you have to nominate one person from your team, preferably the wisest, to choose your entourage. Have quick tryouts if you must. Make it snappy."

Rikkaidai unanimously chose Yukimura in three seconds. Seigaku couldn't quite decide, so they had each member give quick inspirational speeches as to why he should be chosen. Fuji went first.

"Right," said Fuji, "well, since I'm going first anyway, and it's already three o'clock, why don't we just save some time with these tryouts?" He opened his eyes. "Let me be the picker or I'll kill you all in your sleep."

"...right. Who votes for Fuji?" Tezuka asked in a shaky voice. Everyone raised his hand.

"Well, isn't that nice?" said Fuji. He and Yukimura stepped away from their teams and stood shoulder to shoulder. "Great work," Said Ryuzaki, "Now all that's left is for you to pick your teams. We'll flip a coin to decide who gets to choose first."

"If you have a coin, why don't you just flip it to decide who wins the match!!!??" Everyone screamed.

Ryuzaki laughed. "Oh come now," she said, chuckling, "that would just be silly."

They all slapped their foreheads.

She continued, "anyway, I'm going to flip now, so let's call it. Tails for Seigaku because people from Seigaku have tails."

No one wanted to ask what that meant.

She flipped and it was heads.

"Alright, Rikkaidai chooses first." She concluded.

"Hyoutei," said Yukimura immediately, smiling radiantly.

"Very well. Atobe, move," said Ryuzaki, "Fuji, it's your turn."

The rest of the Seigaku team tried to give him advice from the sidelines.

"Remember, Fuji, this choice affects the whole team!" Oishi hissed desperately, "Please choose wisely!"

"Hmmm." Fuji put one hand to his chin. "St. Rudolph."

"God damn it!" Yuuta cursed and Syuusuke smiled more brilliantly than ever and beckoned the team over.

"Wow. Really strange choice," said Ryuzaki, "and now Rikkaidai chooses again."

"You don't need to narrate," Tezuka pointed out. "It's pretty obvious what's going on."

"That's what she said," said Ryuzaki.

"She got you there," Oishi said reasonably.

"Fudomine." Said Yukimura, completely unfazed by all the madness that was going on around him.

"I guess I should have mentioned," said Ryuzaki as Tachibana went to join the Rikkaidai side, "it's not necessarily in your best interests to pick the strongest tennis teams. The challenges that you will be encountering could range from a sports game, a song, to anything. In other words, the challenges could be any sort of random shit. You want to pick the teams that you think will contribute what your team lacks. The best teams to pick would be the ones that you feel could offer the most creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness."

"Fudomine." Said Yukimura again.

"And just for the record, 'creativity', 'innovation', and 'resourcefulness' all mean more or less the same thing," Yanagi muttered under his breath.

"Back to Seigaku," Ryuzaki unnecessarily narrated.

"Fuji......" the rest of the Seigaku team looked close to tears, "Please choose well. We desperately need a strong team. Please pick the one that can contribute the most to our team....."

"Rokkaku." said Fuji.

There was utter silence and one could hear crickets chirping. Tezuka fainted.

"What?" said Fuji. "I like Saeki."

"Thanks, Fuji." Said Saeki.

"You're welcome." Said Fuji.

"Last pick, Rikkaidai." Said Ryuzaki. "Which team do you want?"

"Shintenhouji. Obviously." Said Yukimura. "Their strengths are all of Seigaku's weaknesses."

"Good pick." Said Ryuzaki. "Sorry Seigaku, looks like you're stuck with Yamabuki."

She shoved Sengoku over in the direction of Seigaku. "Awww." Said Yamabuki, trooping over to Seigaku's side, sad at being chosen last.

"Great line up." Said Ryuzaki. "We'll call you Team One and Team Two for now because I can't think of anything better."

"Who's Team One?" demanded Eiji.

"I don't know." Ryuzaki shrugged and pointed at Rikkaidai. "They are. It doesn't matter."

"Well, why do they get to be Team One?" Eiji cried. "That's lowering our egos right off the bat!"

"They can be Team One if they want," Yukimura graciously offered.

"Okay, okay," Ryuzaki started to get pissed off, "New idea: Rikkaidai will be Team Nice Guys and you, Seigaku, will be Team Douchebags."

"Awww." The Seigaku team chorused.

"But anyway, here's the line up," said Ryuzaki. "Rikkaidai's team is composed of Rikkaidai, Hyoutei, Shintenhouji, and Fudomine. Seigaku's team is Seigaku, Yamabuki, Rokkaku, and St. Rudolph. In other words, one of the teams rocks and the other one completely sucks."

"I wonder which is which," Momoshiro wondered aloud.

"I wonder why no one from the other schools is talking," mused Kirihara.

"Yeah, about that..." said Ryuzaki. "There's definitely going to be some rationing of the speaking roles going on, because if everyone talks an equal amount all the time, I'll go crazy."

"How exactly do you ration speaking?" Yagyuu asked.

"You can only have a significant speaking part if you're directly involved in the challenge." Ryuzaki explained. "That ought to cut down on the number of speakers significantly."

"So we won't all be competing together?" Oishi asked cautiously.

"Gods, no." said Ryuzaki. "Maybe every now and then. But mostly, we'll have challenges that only involve certain groups of people. For example, we might have a challenge only for people with black hair or something. However, there's one condition: there must always be at least one person from both Seigaku and Rikkaidai participating. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to have random people competing while the people it affects just watch. Basically, you won't necessarily all be working on challenges together with your team even though you're one group."

"Then what was the point of dividing us into teams?" Jackal asked.

"So that you could develop a feeling of comraderie." Said Ryuzaki, looking mildly annoyed. "And I already said, you are one with your team, it's just that the teams are so big that it would be chaos to have them all compete at once. Although I do like chaos....." she trailed off thoughtfully and everyone gulped.

"Well anyway," she said, "challenges start tomorrow. You'll all meet here at nine thirty sharp for the first challenge. You should spend tonight getting to know eachother. Any questions?"

Tachibana raised his hand. "Since teams besides Seigaku and Rikkaidai are getting nothing out of this, what's the motivation for us to work and help our teams?" he asked shrewdly.

"That's the tricky part." Said Ryuzaki. "Obviously, people from Rikkaidai and Seigaku want to work hard because their championship depends on it, but for the other teams, you're going to have to find some sort of inspiration from your teammates. And cheating is perfectly allowed."

"How do we cheat?"

"You could help the other team, for example," she suggested, shrugging. "but that's not really the point. If your team wins, not only do we decide who wins the championship, but you will have been a part of that decision. Doesn't that make you feel good?"

"Not really." said Tachibana.

"Oh. Well, screw you then. That's something you can deliberate tonight with your teams." She said.

"Fine." said everyone moodily. This day was sucking more and more by the second.

"Any other questions?" Ryuzaki asked. "No? Great. Then get the hell out of here. I've talked enough for today."

"What, that's it?" Yagyuu asked sarcastically, "We've got the dry facts and now we've got to go? No words of inspiration or love from you?"

"What, were you expecting a soliloquy? Just get lost!"

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