Disclaimer: I don't own PoT. I don't claim to own PoT. I'm pretty sure either scenario would land me in jail- I don't want to do drugs anyways.

Echizen-sama

Ryoma walked calmly to school. It was a cold morning, quite cold for the beginning of autumn, yet he wore only a light jacket and his customary cap. The first day of Junior High… Ryoma pulled his cap low over his eyes and smiled slightly. He wondered what his new school would be like- but from the looks of things, it was already going to be interesting.

Tezuka took a sharp breath. When had the young master disappeared? He was certain he hadn't taken his eyes off him… Suddenly, Tezuka felt the cold blade of a knife at his throat. He swallowed, feeling the prick of the sharp edge on his neck. The soft voice in his ear whispered, "Who are you and why are you following me?" Tezuka froze. He hadn't expected this. Keeping his cool demeanor, he answered his master smoothly, "I am one of the bodyguards sent to keep track of you." There was a snort. "In other words, someone sent by my idiot of a grandmother then. She doesn't trust me to take care of myself."

"Actually, your grandmother does not order us. She died some time ago, although that information was not released to the public yet. Your father is the one ordering us."

Ryoma's eyes narrowed. So, either these people were telling the truth, or they had done their research. But, first things first.

"Call out all your men. There's 7 more of you, get them all out here."

Tezuka couldn't help but be surprised, but he didn't show it in any way. He'd been told that his young master was rather sharp, but he hadn't expected this degree of watchfulness. It just went to show that letting one's guard down was never advisable. "All of you, come out."

As the figures melted out of the shadows and surrounded Ryoma and Tezuka, Ryoma braced himself. If they were truly after him, they would attack now. But instead, they stood silently in a circle, awaiting orders from their leader.

Ryoma shifted slightly. Trying to keep his feet on the ground while whispering in the tall man's ear was rather difficult. But he had to be sure. He said slowly, "All right then, since you were sent by my father, what is the password?"

Tezuka swallowed again, but he had an idea of what he should answer. "There is no password, your father never uses those things."

Ryoma sighed and took his knife off the older man's throat. "I apologize then, but I had to check, didn't I?" he smiled cockily at his guard.

Tezuka nodded in agreement. "I agree that it was necessary. However, I regret that we were not introduced before this, thereby eliminating the need for you to question me like this. However, I must say, I was surprised by your skill in finding every one of us. You are extremely talented."

Ryoma just grinned, receiving the praise in stride, but his eyes were still wary. "Where's the last one? I said there were seven of you. Why is he still in that tree?"

Tezuka turned, startled. Yes, there were only 6 other people here besides himself and Ryoma. His eyes narrowed. "Kikumaru, when we get to school, 20 laps for sleeping on the job." …No response. "30 laps." Still nothing. Tezuka turned to his second in command, Oishi. "Get Kikumaru down. I'll escort the young master to school, else we'll be late." Oishi nodded, then raced over to the tree in question. "Eiji! Oi, Eiji! Get down from there!" … Still no response. Oishi let out a soft sigh. He didn't have any choice. Bending down, he picked up a handy pinecone, hefting it briefly in his palm before firing it upwards with surprising strength.

A slim redhead tumbled from the branches, flipping in midair and landing gracefully on his feet while rubbing his head. "Oi, Oishi, there was no need to throw it that hard! Why couldn't you have just yelled?" Oishi let out a sigh. "I did. You didn't hear me."

Sighing, Tezuka turned to his young master. "Do you mind if we go back into hiding? It's safer for you if nobody knows you're important enough to have bodyguards." Ryoma just pulled his cap lower. "Do as you like." It was going to be an interesting year.

***

The group traveled to school, careful to enter in ones and twos at carefully calculated intervals. Nobody could know that they were guarding the master. After all, he even had a different name here, expressly to prevent people from knowing that he was the heir to the Echizen fortune.

As Ryoma walked to the front desk, Tezuka watched from a safe distance. New students had to talk to the office first and receive their schedules, as well as a map of the campus. Seigaku was a rather large school, after all.

"Name?" "Takeda Saicho." "Oh, you're a freshman, hmm?" "Yes." "Ok then, here's your schedule, and here's the map of the campus. Your classes have been color-coded to the map, so you can find your way easily. Get your teachers to sign your schedule at each class, so that we know that you can get around the campus to each one. Bring the schedule back at the end of the day, ok?" "Hai."

Tezuka let out a rare smile as his master walked away. Takeda Saicho… nothing to do with the Echizen family at all, unless you knew their background very, very well. Takeda was the last name of Ryoma's mother's aunt. His mother's maiden name was Mitsuki, but her aunt had married a Takeda, hence the name. And Saicho was the name of his uncle's best friend in grade school; that Saicho had been a poor one, so nobody had taken notice of him, making it a hard name to place. Those two names couldn't be traced back to the Echizen family easily, but were close enough to Ryoma that he could remember them easily. Tezuka was proud of him.

They made their way to class. However, there was a problem here. Ryoma-sama was, after all, a full year younger than any of them. The rest of the group assigned to watch him were all second or third years, while Ryoma was a first year. How would they watch him if he wasn't in the same class?

Simple. Someone would have to infiltrate as a teacher. Preferably 2 people.

Hence the need for 'Inui-sensei' and 'Tezuka-sensei'. They wouldn't actually be teachers, just student teachers, the ones that kind of sit in the corner and take notes while the teacher speaks, and occasionally teaches the class while the actual teacher goes to get coffee. It was a harsh job, yes, one that wouldn't receive any recognition, but it was the only way to keep track of their young master. In any case, those would only be when nobody else had a spare; if someone had a spare, they would keep an eye on Ryoma-sama through a window, or just outside the door. They already had it all planned out long ago.

Ryoma walked into his first lesson- English. He sat down at his desk, pulled out his books, and prepared to sleep. It was a good thing it was English first, as it gave him a chance to get some more sleep. He was always sleepy in the mornings.

The bell rang, signaling the start of class. Automatically, Ryoma stood up, yawning as he did so. The teacher walked in. She looked like a harmless old lady, with wrinkled skin and a kind smile. Ryoma chuckled silently to himself. Looked like English would be a breeze.

"Class! Come to attention!" Ryoma jolted straight as the "sweet" old lady barked out orders. Was that really her voice yelling at the class? "Now, I'll have you know, English is a very important subject! People everywhere speak English! No matter where you go, English is a common language! So we have to be able to speak it, read it, hear it, manipulate it as we wish! Towards that end, we will start off the year with a small pop quiz. This is to test how well you listened in class last year! This will be the first assessment of the term, so make sure you do well!" Still with that deceiving kind smile on her face, the old lady turned to the door. "Assistant teacher, please hand out the tests."

Ryoma nearly keeled over sideways when Inui walked in. It wasn't Inui that surprised him. After all, Ryoma had expected to see those bodyguards around the school. No, what surprised him was what he was holding.

There were about 30 people in his class, a pretty average class size. Inui was carrying a stack of papers about 3 feet high- he was struggling to see where he was going. Ryoma just stared in shock at the tests. Oh god. He might actually need to pay attention in class this year.

Soon, the classroom settled down and all Ryoma could hear was the scratching of pencils on paper. He quickly finished the first grammar section, and moved to the next part. Reading comprehension. He flipped through the selection, registering dimly that the story incredibly long. 5 pages, double sided, for a small "quiz"? The teacher was mad. He quickly did the few multiple choice questions here, then stared at the paragraph answer. She had to be mad. This was impossible.

"How does the descriptive language affect the mood of this piece?"

Crap. This was like a test he'd written in America, for native English speakers. There was no way a Japanese person, with English as a second language, could possibly do this. Although he might be able to… he quickly started forth.

Theme first… then relate the descriptive language to the mood… which relates back to the theme… Ryoma quickly fell back into the familiar writing pattern he'd used in America.

The bell rang as he was halfway through the test. He looked up, startled. "Crap," he muttered. Sighing, he flipped the test back to the first page and prepared to hand it in. As he did so, he saw something that made his face lose all color.

Just under the instructions was a note by the teacher. "Only do the multiple choice questions. We will do some of the paragraphs another day. This was used as a longer exam for more advanced students, so I do not expect you to finish this in the allotted time today."

Pale and shaking, Ryoma handed his test in, then stumbled outside. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? He never read the instructions, yes, but still, he'd missed such a clear note, and created so much more trouble for himself. Why? Why? For possibly the first time in his life, Ryoma felt an overwhelming urge to whack his head against something hard. Preferably a wall somewhere that wouldn't mind him bleeding all over it.

Inui stared in consternation after his young charge. What had he seen to make him go so white? Was there a secret note somewhere that threatened his life? He thought back to how Ryoma-sama had acted this morning. Cool, collected, even in the face of a possible ambush by 8 men; he was truly a force to be reckoned with. Nothing less than a note threatening his life could possibly have that effect on him. Inui had to tell Tezuka immediately. They would need to double the guard, ensure that nothing happened to the young master.

Still rather pale, Ryoma made his way to his next class. Ugh… math. Why math? He hated math. All those stupid formulae, numbers, signs, all in stupid situations that would never be used in real life. Yeah, he was good at it, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Why did he have to know this stuff?

As he walked into class, he noticed a green flash by the window.

Eyes narrowing instantly, he made his way cautiously to the window in question. He opened it, and leaned out, braced for any attack.

He looked down, and saw Kaidoh's face red with the effort of holding on to the window ledge. The green flash had been his bandana. Ryoma nearly groaned. This was the second floor, for crying out loud! Sighing, he pointed silently to a place a few meters to Kaidoh's right.

Just past the border of the window, there was a ledge, an overhanging for the door below. Kaidoh turned even redder, if that was possible. Grunting slightly, Kaidoh carefully made his way to the convenient ledge and let out a breath as he dropped onto it. Turning, he gave a thumbs-up sign to Ryoma, who turned and went back into the classroom. It was a good thing for Kaidoh that his seat was near the window.

Yawn… stupid algebra and stuff… Ryoma sighed. Why did he have to learn this stupid math stuff? Suddenly he thought of an idea. He grinned as he surreptitiously passed a worksheet and a pencil to Kaidoh. Kaidoh looked at him with confusion, and Ryoma merely grinned wider. He ripped a scrap of paper off of his notebook, wrote something on it, then passed it to Kaidoh.

"Do my math homework please." Kaidoh stared at the piece of paper in consternation, then looked back at the worksheet in his hand. "Crap," he muttered. Just his luck. His worst subject, and he had to do it for his master? Argh. Well, at least he'd done some of this before, although he had nearly failed. He squinted at the first section. "Solve for x." He let out a low hiss. Could he do it properly?

At the end of class, the teacher asked for the worksheets. Ryoma smiled as Kaidoh passed him the papers. He scanned the work quickly, and nearly fell over in shock.

3x=9 x = 6

5x+2=8 x = 5

x+6=9 x=15

Ryoma let out a curse. Who knew that his guard was so bad at math? Ryoma may have hated math, but he wasn't bad at it. Well, it was his fault for making Kaidoh do it. Ryoma sighed again as he handed in his worksheets. Well, maybe he would be able to bring his mark up in the future. Maybe he'd get extra marks for "improving."

Kaidoh frowned as he saw the look on his master's face. He really wasn't looking very good. Had something really happened as Inui had said? There was definitely something wrong here. He would have to report back to Tezuka.

***

Ryoma looked up at the sky. He had been lucky to discover this place. It seemed that few people came up to the roof here. It was nice to have some peace and quiet once in a while.

He let out a sigh. Who knew that school would be this hectic? He'd never had any problems like this in grade school. He'd breezed through that quite easily. Although, he mused, it was mainly his fault. He never made such stupid mistakes in grade school. He winced again as he thought of the error on the English test. God, that was the stupidest mistake he'd ever made. And then, relying on a guard to do his homework… Ryoma paled again as he thought of the utter incompetence Kaidoh had shown at math. Well, it just went to show that he couldn't rely on anyone else. He would have to be more careful in future.

Tezuka frowned. After what Inui and Kaidoh had said, he thought it was quite clear that there was something wrong with the young master. It was quite possible that there had in fact been some threatening note somewhere, and his attitude now only confirmed that further. Considering how unsettled he was now, it was practically certain that there had been a threat on his life. Tezuka pushed his glasses up. Well, he would just have to ensure that Ryoma-sama stayed safe. He would need to keep a closer eye on him- without him knowing, of course.

Well, time to get back to class. Ryoma stood and brushed off his clothes. As he did so, a small slip of paper fell to the ground.

"I'll be waiting for you after school at the cherry tree. ~S"

Ryoma let out a sigh. That girl had passed him the note during Science. He wondered who she was. Maybe she just wanted to show him around or something. Well, he supposed that he would have to go. Shrugging, he left the note where it was, and left the rooftop.

Tezuka's sharp eyes had seen that scrap of paper float to the ground. Eyes narrowing, he strode over- as soon as Ryoma-sama was gone, of course- and picked it up. Eyes wide, he stared at the small message, written in clear, neat writing. This was bad. It was the first day, and already he had someone after him? S… could it be the Shirayukis? Tezuka contacted the others immediately. They would need to ensure their master's safety, especially from this hostile gang.

***

Gulping, Ryoma made his way to the cherry tree. He really was uncomfortable around girls. He always didn't know what to say. And he always ended up making them cry or something. It sucked. But, he couldn't exactly not show up… that would just create more problems, also ending up with tears on the girl's part. Ugh… he hated situations like these.

From his vantage point on the roof, Tezuka observed the situation. His binoculars let him see the scene clearly. At the moment, the unknown "S" hadn't shown up yet, but his master was already looking very unsettled. It was definitely something bad, to unnerve him to this degree. Even surrounded by 8 possibly hostile people, Ryoma-sama hadn't lost his cool. This must be very serious.

Ryoma gulped. She was here. That long hair in 2 braids, the shy blush… there was no doubt about it. She was the girl from Science. He cleared his throat and attempted to look cool.

"Ne… Takeda-san… thanks for meeting here with me today…"

WHAM! Ryoma blinked, and suddenly that Ryuzaki girl wasn't there any more. He looked around, then finally looked down. At his feet, Momoshiro had tackled the girl, bringing her down. He yelled, "Taka-san! Get the rope!"

"Rope?" Ryoma started to say, but his voice was drowned out by a loud "BURNING!" He looked up to see Kawamura making a diving leap towards the pair on the ground.

Tezuka, from his place on the roof, let out a curse. There was no mistaking that long brown hair. It wasn't the Shirayukis, as they had thought. It was far, far worse.

The Akashiyas had come for him, likely signing the note "S" to confuse them. Tezuka started running down the stairs, barking orders through his communication device as he went. He raced down to the scene, only to discover that Momo and Kawamura had already subdued the Akashiya. Eyes narrowed, Tezuka stood over the young girl who was doing a good job of acting frightened. He leaned down and hissed, "Akashiya, what do you want with our master?"

Ryoma put a hand over his eyes in horror. Why had it come to this? Stupid bodyguards. Stupid stupid people. He couldn't even talk to a girl without them interfering? He groaned. Instantly, Fuji and Oishi were at his side. "What's wrong? Did she hurt you?" Ryoma gritted his teeth. Finally, he barked out, "STOP!" Instantly, all movement ceased, and 9 pairs of eyes turned to stare at him.

"What do you think you're doing? I just came here to talk with her. She's a girl in my class, for crying out loud! Can't I even talk to people without you guys barging in?" Ryoma started ranting. He knew he was ranting. But he couldn't stop. It seemed that, as soon as these bodyguards had entered his life, everything had become that much more complicated.

Tezuka tried to explain, "This girl is an Akashiya, one of your family's greatest enemies-" Ryoma cut him off incredulously. "Akashiya? You think she's an Akashiya? Look again. Look at her eyes." They looked. He was right; the eyes were nothing like an Akashiya's. An Akashiya always had dark, slightly red-tinted eyes. This girl had soft, warm, chocolaty eyes. Sighing, Ryoma pulled his cap down over his eyes. "Do you really think I would be so stupid as to meet with an Akashiya? I know their traits almost as well as I know the Echizens' traits. I can tell who they are."

Inui pushed up his glasses. "Well, according to my data, there was a 70% chance of you receiving some threatening note, judging from your behavior in class." Ryoma turned to stare at him, shocked, but Inui continued as though nothing had happened. "When Tezuka saw the note that was signed 'S', it corresponded to earlier data too well. We couldn't believe that it was coincidence. Then, when the person that showed up appeared to have similar traits to one of your enemies, the chance that something was wrong rocketed to 98%. Too many coincidences and several of our miscalculations led to this end. We apologize for this."

Ryoma just closed his eyes again. God, why had it come to this? Why? Why did he have to go through this all the time? Why? He pried his eyes open slightly to glare at his bodyguards. "Ok then, first things first, let her go. She's perfectly innocent." Sighing, Momo and Kawamura climbed off poor Sakuno, apologizing profusely as they undid the ropes.

Sakuno was still kind of stunned on the ground, unmoving. Just who was Takeda Saicho anyways? Why had he been so fiercely guarded? Why would the Akashiya's be after him? Weren't the Akashiya's one of those big rich families? None of it seemed to make sense. As she slowly stood up, she resolved silently to find out the truth behind Takeda and the group that was after him.

Ryoma resisted the urge once again to injure himself in some way. And he'd been looking forwards to starting Junior High fresh, without stupid attempts on his life or crazy admirers chasing after him all the time. He'd thought that changing his name and having guards would help. But in a way, these bodyguards were even worse, making his life hell.

He could see that this year was going to be a long, long year.

A/N: Ok, I'm going to continue this. This won't be a long story though, we'll see where it goes! As asked for, there will be no pairings in this story. Ryoma and Sakuno will just be friends. So, review please!