T H E-W O R L D-O F-M Y-H E A R T
by Nicole Fang

main pairing: FujixRyoma/Thrill Pair

rating: T (warning will move up as the chapters increase with all kinds of delicious tension)

summary: Ryoma, Fuji, and different guardians of different worlds are suddenly brought together by an evil, ancient power. Will Fuji and Ryoma be able to deal with their attraction even as they are targeted for death?

Author's Before Note: I guess I was too excited when I found out there was a sequel to the Prince of Tennis… This fic has been in my hard drive for quite some time, but I've finally gotten a few hours to start writing it. I'm trying out a different, more solemn tone to this fic, so if it feels a little awkward tell me! And now, I hope you enjoy it!

Prologue

...

Fuji watched the humans and creatures with a smile pasted onto his face from the high point of the guardian cliff. He ignored the shuffling steps behind him that indicated his partner back from his round through the town. The wind blew through his hair and Fuji blinked to get a few hair strands out of his eyes.

The people below were having a festival today. They were singing and dancing, and it was like seeing dazzling colors in front of him. But it's all so far away from my touch, he mused expressionlessly as his finger twitched at his side. This feeling of isolation… Not like it really mattered anyway. Perhaps that was the reason he had gotten this job; because he could take that lonely feeling and not be bothered by it.

A soft rustle behind of him made him turn around, expectation written on his face.

"How'd it go?" he asked softly, but clearly. His right hand moved down to where his weapon was. He idly thought, I need to stop that nasty habit, as the other guardian sighed softly and turned to look at Fuji.

"Something is happening," he said, confirming Fuji's fears. "The towns' people have been more restless than usual, and the animals seemed to get squeamish when I tried to go near."

Fuji turned back to look at the small village below him, one eyebrow raised and smile still in place. There was a pregnant pause before he said, "Things are getting very interesting, huh, Kunimitsu?"

"Define your meaning of interesting," Tezuka murmured and turned to look at Fuji with a scrutinizing glance. "I never can tell what you mean."

Not answering, the flaxen-haired guardian looked down again to watch the cheerful faces of the humans playing and having a good time. His eyes spotted a man walking crookedly, drunk, as a young man assisted him trying to get home. Fuji shook his head and glanced up at the sky. "Can you feel that, Kuni? There's an ominous feeling in the air."

The silence of the other spoke volumes.

Kaidoh Kaoru stared. He couldn't help it. At his side, he was sure Inui Sadahara, his partner, was doing the exact same. And he was sure that they were thinking the same thing.

Who the hell did this shrimp think he was?

"Not very bright, are you two?" the newcomer commented, sharp gold eyes taking in their expressions as he sat on the ground, petting a dragon that was curled up in his lap. The dragon gave a small huff of contentment, smoke coming out of its nose.

Kaidoh glared at the boy, and was about to release a hiss when he felt a hand on his arm, holding him back. Glancing back, he saw Inui shake his head. He turned back to the boy to give another glare before breathing in deeply through his nose and angrily stomping away.

"You're-" Inui paused, trying to gather his bearings, "-here to make sure we're doing our jobs correctly?" he asked. The boy nodded.

"Correct! I'm glad there's some brain in there after all."

The boy stretched his arms, and Inui gave them a quick glance over, trying not to have any physical reaction when he saw the toned arms. There was a lot of muscle in those skinny appendages. He would have to warn Kaidoh not to do anything stupid against this… What was it that boy said? Ah yes. He would have to warn Kaidoh not to do anything stupid against this so called "Guardian of Guardians".

Facing the youth, Inui was struck by those golden, cat-like orbs on him. They were cold and merciless under the fake boredom. Sadahara felt a shiver of unease make its way to the base of his spine. Those eyes were stripping him of everything he knew, and he didn't like it. The spell was broken when the boy blinked.

"Well, if you're done examining my muscle definition, I'd suggest you get going. It seems like your partner will need your help in a few minutes," the dark words spoken from a smirking mouth sent another curl of dread through his system. Inui gave the boy a suspicious glance behind his eyewear, nodded, and disappeared.

Echizen Ryoma stared after him, a curious expression blooming on his face. He looked down when the dragon gave another huff, this time irritated for the neglect in pets. He gave a smirk and brushed his hand over the dragon's scales.

"They still have lots more to work on, huh, Karupin?" The dragon gave a snort of agreement. Ryoma directed his gaze to the sky, dark pupils dilating to see beyond the stars that were beginning to show. "I hope I wasn't too late, Grandma Ryuuzaki."

"Oishi, come 'ere! I need help; this thing has been chasing after me for ten minutes!" Kikumaru Eiji wailed, trying to outrun a very large worm, but failing since he was sprinting in a circle. "I'm gonna die!"

Oishi Shuichiro gave an irritated glance at his partner as he dodged a set of sharp teeth. He grated out, "In case you haven't noticed, Eiji, I'm dealing with my own at the moment."

From the corner of his eye, he saw a tail fly at him and swung his sword up cleanly, cutting the tail off in a precise manner and going back to block two sets of teeth in a matter of seconds. The worm gave a disgusting howl of pain and tried to attack again. He ground his teeth together, his feet moving back from the force of the attack.

"Straight formation, Eiji?" he called out desperately, hoping that his childish partner was finally ready to finish this.

Watching the redhead come towards him with a nodding head, Oishi pushed with all his might and jumped back, his shoulders knocking against the other guardian's. "Ready?" he murmured under his breath. He felt Kikumaru nod, tiny hairs brushing against his neck.

They moved at the same time. The other guardian, jumping – practically flying – over Oishi, went to take on the worm with the missing tail as Oishi dashed under and made sharp, quick stabs at the second worm. Grabbing the thing's tail as it whipped out, Oishi gave another clean cut to swerve the appendage off and was able to give a lethal blow. He let go of his sword, allowing it to stay in the worm and whistled loudly. Kikumaru flipped over him, dropping his sword to give to Oishi and grasped the other sword, pulling down to completely dismantle the head from the body.

Oishi went to work on the other worm, trying to stay out of reach from the two pairs of sharp teeth that belonged in the same mouth. He grimaced and did a spin in the air, using Kikumaru's sword to cut the teeth. The worm let out another howl of pain. It charged at him, beady black eyes glaring at him.

The redhead landed in front of him and, using the worm's surprise to his advantage, quickly thrust Oishi's sword into its mouth and pushed down, chopping the worm's head in two. Oishi winced as he thought of the clean up on his precious blade. The worm landed on the ground with a thud. Kikumaru looked back at him with a mischievous grin.

"That's for cutting its teeth off with my sword," he told Oishi happily, and they exchanged weapons. Automatically, they started cleaning their precious weapons and in a habit, both glanced up at the darkening sky.

Suddenly the ground rumbled in fury.

Momoshiro Takeshi watched, bored, as his partner released another blast of harsh energy. The sword at his side lay unused, unneeded for the moment, as he observed from the safety of the trees.

"Yeah!" Kawamura Takashi yelled up into the sky, the tendons standing out in his neck. "No one can defeat me! Bring it on!" Around him was carnage of blood from the supernaturals that he had killed.

It's weird, Momoshiro thought, a considering look passing over his face. What made all these creatures just attack us? Nothing provoked them, and it isn't mating season yet, so territorial issues are a no-go.

The only thing Momo knew was that they had been watching from their headquarters when this clenched feeling developed in their guts. They had looked at each other for a long moment, and took off to where the feeling worsened- the forest. There they had found a gathering of animals and monsters alike.

The animals were harmless enough; they scattered when they saw the two guardians coming. The supernatural creatures, on the other hand, did not. They immediately launched a defensive – bordering on offensive – attack that would only show when irritated. And the whole thing had started from there.

Now that all the creatures were gone, the sensation in Momo's gut only worsened, leaving him feeling physically ill. He looked up at the sky, a hand going to clutch at the fabric around his stomach, before grabbing his sword and dropping down to the ground…

Just as the land began to shake.

Fuji opened his eyes, hands going out to balance himself as the world began to move under his feet. His calm orbs cast a swift glance over to Tezuka before looking over the cliff to see how the people were reacting to the shake. They continued to laugh and dance, oblivious to what was happening a few miles away. It didn't seem like they were being affected at all. What the hell was going on?

"Tezuka," he got out.

"Yes, I know," the other guardian replied, trying to steady himself. Unfortunately, a particularly rough shake to the cliff they were on had both of them hitting the ground hard. Fuji pushed himself up on his elbows, and ignored the sting on his cheek and arms, watching with hard eyes as the ground below them began to fall apart due to the earthquake.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and didn't turn around.

"We have to get out of here, Fuji," Tezuka stated quietly. "Only this place is coming down. We can't waste time here."

Fuji knew that already.

"Now isn't the time to be stubborn," Tezuka tried again, obviously growing frustrated with him.

That frustration clouded Tezuka's senses, and Fuji was the only one to see the five black shadows that leapt out at them from the cave.

Ryoma blocked one of the attackers, other hand making a move to give the other four a blast of pure energy, and sneered at the two guardians lying stunned on the floor. "I can't understand the reason Miss Ryuuzaki assigned you two as guardians. You're useless."

He turned back to the dark attacker, pushing the pathetic being off of him with a punch in the gut, and grabbed his daggers out of their sheaths. Echizen quickly darted to another one, making four slashes to the figure's sides before taking it by surprise and mercilessly bringing a handle to his dagger into the temple of the opponent's head. It dropped to the floor.

Ryoma directed his gaze over to an open area when he heard the sounds of fighting going on. Then he looked around for a moment. "Karupin?" he called out, watching as the tiny dragon flew out of the trees to hover in front of him. "See if you can read this guy's mind, will you?" The dragon gave a nod before opening her mouth, chomping down hard on the thing's ear. The figure still didn't stir. Frowning in suspicion, Ryoma continued scanning the body of any reaction, but didn't find any.

The sounds of someone walking toward him made him say, "Well, it looks like you can at least defend yourself."

"I am not useless," the scary-looking guy hissed at him in reply. Ryoma wracked his memory for the dude's name. Oh. Kaidoh Kaoru. Pussy name, if you asked him. To smell sweet flowers? Go figure. Echizen didn't deem a response.

The other guy seemed to know this as well and asked a question instead. "How did you know that we would need help?"

"Isn't it apparent to you by now?" Ryoma retorted, not moving his gaze as Karupin continued to bite the ear. "I obviously have a better brain than either of you."

"Why you-!"

Karupin interrupted them by whining in pain, suddenly letting go of the ear to drop to the floor, limp. Ryoma's eyes widened in alarm, hand going out to reach for the dragon, when he saw the dark figure suddenly grow bigger, swallowing everything in its path at a startling rate.

"What…" he breathed in a moment of pure shock and confusion, just as everything went black.

Author's Ending Note: Other chapters after this will hopefully focus more on one pair than all of them like this did. I know this felt all jumpy, but it was on purpose, so… Haha, and it went in a timeline, but just in different places. It started from being a bad feeling, to going out to patrol, finding some type of creature to kill, the ground making strange noises after, the ground moving under their feet, and black figures coming after them. And then black. Hmm, I wonder what happened to them. ~_+

Oh, and about Kaidoh's name. That's what came up after searching five minutes on Google. So I'll stick with it unless one of you know what his name translates into. XD

I know they're OOC, but I'm waiting until later on to show more in-character dialogue. And while I'm on the subject of updating, the next chapters will show in the…far…future. Sorry. Blame real life. -_-

Tell me what you think! Review please!