Note: As holiday sets in, I can't help but to write this story ASAP. I mean it literally though, for I managed to finish this in 3 hours! .
Enjoy~

On the last day of school for the term, everyone was gathered in hall to hold a final assembly as a tribute to the graduating cohort. The principal would begin the speech, followed by the student councils and ended by the leader of each clubs.

This pattern subjected Seigaku Tennis team to a certain complication. Their captain, Tezuka Kunimitsu, was also holding position as student council president. It would be unfair to have him giving speech twice- both for him and for all the students. The normal course of action would be to let the vice-captain represented the team, however...

"But I have to represent the health department! Won't it be the same as to have Tezuka presenting? I mean, both of us are leaders of other committee, so..." Oishi looked away from his teammates sheepishly.

"Health department can have someone else presenting, nya!" Eiji jumped onto his doubles partner. "Oishi, you must represent our tennis club!"

Cold sweats went down Oishi's face. He knew he was losing the arguement.

'Now we will be presenting the representative from Seigaku's sports' clubs, starting with basketball.'

The announcement noted how little time Oishi had left to settle this issue. God, he really wanted to smack himself for not preparing this in advance. He had thought that health department would not require any representative. Oh such grave mistake that was.

"F-Fuji!" Oishi called the boy standing ahead of him nervously. "Can you be the representative?"

"Well..." Fuji made a thinking gesture with his hand. "I would like to, however I am the representative for the graduation album presentation at the end of this event."

Oishi was becoming more nervous. He did not want the school to think that he was hogging the spotlight by presenting twice. Eiji's constant pestering did not help at all.

Think Oishi! He yelled inwardly. I can't let Eiji go. Taka-san is too timid to take the job. The only person left is... But he would definitely spoke of nothing but statistics! Ah...I can't make up my mind! Who should I-!

'Next up is the representative from our celebrated Seigaku's Tennis Club!'

"Oh no!" Oishi gasped in horror. He had failed to make decision in time. What should he do now? He didn't have any choice left but to...

"I'll go."

Inui announced to the whole team. By the time, he was already at the exit.

"Inui!"

"I have something important to say, after all." Inui muttered under his breath before he left the backstage and the rest of Seigaku tennis members behind.

Speaking in public was not truly Inui's cup of tea- unless if it was regarding numbers and statistics. On normal circumstances, he would be spitting out his data regarding Seigaku Tennis team's conduct throughout the year and how it related to their fresh victory. That was what happened during his sophomore year. Everyone was too deeply overwhelmed by his data that none could keep their eyes wide open.

This time, he would have done the same thing. It was completely logical that his vice-captain was extremely reluctant to let him do the honors. Inui believed that his love for tennis was manifested greatly onto the team as well, its past, present and future. Oishi did not want to leave a scar onto everyone's mind regarding his dearest object as much as he did not want his dearest object to be jeered at. Of course, that was typical of Oishi's exaggerating nature.

Coming back to the reality, Inui found himself standing behind a wooden coloured podium as tall as his upper torso. Besides a small microphone jutted out from the outer side towards him, the podium was completely empty. Ahead of him was thousands of students of all ages, staring at him with undecipherable intention. Boredom, interest, annoyance, expectation- all were masked behind emotionless facade.

He did not have the chance to calculate his percentage of success and the percentage of applause that he would get. He was not supposed to be standing there to begin with; a mere 0.5% chance. But after Oishi's sudden dilemma, that percentage became applicable to its counterpart. Now he had 0.5% chance of not presenting, especially when deep inside he actually wanted to grab the spotlight for once.

After all those years, Inui finally found himself having something more than data to convey to the mass.

"My name is Inui Sadaharu from class 3-11." He began. The murmuring in the hall subsided rapidly to a complete silent in which a pin drop could be heard crystal clear from the other side.

"I am sure we are familiar with one another. I am also the person representing Seigaku's tennis member during the school opening last year. With that given, 95% chance that you all should be familiar with the statistics regarding Seigaku Tennis Team's foundation, member sorting, finance, techniques and so on."

Murmurings slowly built among the students. Inui could pick up the groans of pain from the anticipation of his data rambling from every side of the hall. Quite an encouragement indeed.

"However, I am not here to repeat what I had said one year eleven months and thirteen days ago. Neither am I here to update on those numbers."

"I am here to share a folktale, about an eagle and a snake."

The hall immediately broke into uproar.

In a land abstract to human, there was a human that was cursed into a snake. It was said that the human had disregard his life when he had been in his non- animalistic form. The God saw his soul and decided to grant his wish, by turning him into a viper.

What might seem to be a blessing turned out to be a curse. The said viper was an animal lover at heart, yet its nature was to devour them for its survival. A touch from his tongue and his lover's soul would die painfully. Vegetation was available as substitution. Albeit it ensured his survival, it was also slowly sipping his life juice out of him.

The snake was not really welcomed in the forest hierarchy. His colonies distanced themselves from what they called 'a freak', while other variety of animals could not get their minds out his quirks. In the end, he was left alone to fend himself.

One faithful day, the snake overheard humans talking about a certain cure to a curse. It was said that should the accursed being climbed to the highest place, the soul would be forgiven and returned to its original form. The snake immediately thought of the highest tree possible in the forest. Climbing was not a problem, but how could be find the highest tree?

In front of him was a tree, looking as gigantic as everyone else. When the snake looked up for measurement, he could only see a trunk that speared the mass of green, extending on towards the blue sky. He deliberated for a moment. Should he climb the tree? He might end up wasting his energy for nothing- a bad scenario considering his lack of strength at the moment.

"Are you here to challenge me, the accursed one?" The tree greeted him with a sneer.

"How do you know of it?"

"Only the accursed one would challenge a tree, you stupid." The tree laughed. "Even as I am immobile here, I bet it would be enough to defeat you. This height is what humans called 'natural gift'. You are welcome to challenge it."

The snake would have burnt the tree if he had the hands to do it. Swallowing his anger, he slithered slowly away from the ground. The tree sneered and jeered at him, even purposely making fun of him as he failed his role as a snake. Even so, the snake persisted in coiling his way up to redemption.

Day and night passed, with the snake growing weaker and weaker. The snake was not given the luxury of rest- at least not yet. He was not able to maintain his weight in the middle of his way up, and thus he would fall back to square one. The tree's laughter was already ingrained in his mind, being sounded every time he ungracefully embraced the ground.

One silent night, when all beings and all trees had gone into their slumber, the snake ungraciously fell once again. This time, he had reached a new height, which he called 'half'. There was no being to laugh at his pitiful state but the cicadas.

But the heaven decided to humor him. Not soon afterwards, another being followed the snake's footstep. It descended from the heaven and landed gracefully at the snake's side.

"Fancy meeting you, snake." The creature greeted. The snake could only see its towering silhouette from the ground. The creature's eyes were lit with a pale light that made its gaze penetrated the snake's soul. It had wings that flapped the air around them, swishing cold air around the snake's body. It was what humans called 'eagle'.

"I trust you would gladly have me as supper?" The eagle queried monotonously.

The snake flinched back from him. "NO! I would never do that!" The two creatures exchanged looks. With no more words exchanged, the snake was set on returning back to his business. He slithered towards the tree and once again coiled his body around the trunk. He made his way slowly away from the earth, with cicadas singing encouragement to him and a guest watching his every move. However, the snake was already at its limit, and it returned before it surpassed 'half'.

"That is a pathetic sight, and a humble homecoming."

"Shut up! No one needs your comment eagle!" Defeat was harder to swallow when there were other s around, the snake noticed.

"The accursed one, would you like me to fly you to your destination?"

"NO!" A flat out rejection.

"...The accursed one, does your curse eat away your life?"

An unexpected question for the snake. He could not decipher the intention. "...No."

"Or perhaps it sucks out your energy?"

Again, the snake shook its head. He felt that he should explain his disposition before this exhange turned into a game a school would play. "I have not eaten for lord's knows how long. As you guessed, I am a cursed human. Even though I was a human, I am still an animal lover. Plants are the things that keeping me alive at the moment."

The eagle contemplated at his words. Seconds passed by, and the snake grew tired of waiting for response. Just as he was about to leave the eagle alone, the guest spoken.

"Would you like to try 'juice'?"

A ridiculous offer, the snake thought. "Juice as in, fruit juice?" He asked incredulously.

"In human terms, yes. In our term, it is a substance made from vegetation with similar taste and appearance to meat. It is used as a substitute for another creature in another world. I believe you can regain your strength and achieve your goal that way."

One could see skepticism in the snake's eyes even in the midst of darkness enshrouding them.

"I can bring you the item now."

"Wait-!" The snake called back, but it was too late. The eagle was nowhere in sight. The snake didn't know whether he should patiently wait or he should ignore the eagle. The thing called 'juice' was arousing his curiosity. Throughout his life as a human, he had never heard of the term 'juice' being used in another way. The item that the eagle had described was called 'vegetarian meat', his staple back when he could do more than just slithering.

Time unexpectedly passed in a blink of an eye. The guest returned with a mass of 'juice', which had uncanny similarity to meat. He could smell the steel-like scent of blood lingering around which made him wanted to puke.

"Are you giving me a meat?" The snake asked with suppressed anger, ready to blow anytime like an active volcano.

"As I told you, this is what we called 'juice'. It has quite a number of similarity with meat indeed, but it is not, I assure you. It is 100% meat free. This scent of blood is coming from me. You see, I went into quite a bit of trouble in getting this."

Guilt rose inside the snake. He did not want to discard something so valuable when someone had painstakingly obtain it for him. It all depended on trust. His nose clearly objected, but his heart agreed in sympathy and longing desire. What was left was his eyes, which failed to elude darkness around him. Perhaps daylight would be a better time-

"I can only obtain this at night, and it must be consumed within that time. I would appreciate if you would stop dragging the time."

The snake finally submitted to pressure, and allowed his eyes to follow his heart. 'Juice' tasted surprisingly similar to meat, yet it was not something he had eaten before as a human. However, it was horrendous, to the point where the snake nearly lost his consciousness. The snake trusted himself that he knew better how to recognize a meat, and a nutritional food on top of that, and therefore he finally submitted to his first supper of his life.

From then on, the eagle never failed to bring the snake its supper. Slowly and gradually the snake grew addicted to its horrid flavour. It was a blessing in disguise indeed. The snake was not only able to surpass the benchmark he called 'half', but he was also advancing at a higher rate. The laughter of the tree dissipated from his mind. It had grown to rare to be memorable. The tree would then try to assemble the forest member to foil the snake's attempt.

There was a bird snatching him away as he neared the top on one night. On the other night, another snake wrestled with him and forcefully dragged him back to the ground as well. A rabbit threw all its food at the snake. Monkey blocked the path by gathering there together. Other members assembled together and danced the 'rain dance', praying for an unfavorable circumstance to befall onto the accursed one.

However, the snake prevailed. He gained his strength from the appalling 'juice' he gorged down his throat every midnight. The vile item that used to make him felt like he was dying slowly turned into a ghastly meal that would literally rob him of his senses. Even so, every morning he would wake up with new strength. It was greater than the previous one, every time. He also noticed that he was slowly growing as a snake, bigger and longer. He even sprouted a pair of mustache.

On the other hand, the snake noticed that the figure of the eagle was becoming smaller and smaller. "You are simply growing bigger that your perception of me changes." The eagle reasoned out when he asked. The snake bought it however, even as he noticed how the eagle's wings definitely grew shorter and the body grew leaner. He was never suspicious of how the eagle wouldn't appear on day. No, he was too consumed by his drive to get rid of his curse.

At last, the snake reached the top of the tree.

The first thing that came into his mind, however, was anything but his curse. "Eagle! I have managed to reach up!" The snake shouted out.

"Congratulations." The reply was soft, yet audible enough to be heard by the snake. He was so elated that he forgot he was a snake and jumped off the tree. Immediately the gravity pulled him down at a speed that can crush his body into intangible glob. The tree was more than ecstatic to see the dramatic end of the accursed one. The forest inhabitants was not any different.

Much to everyone's shock, he stopped midway in air.

"What the-?!" The snake was able to slither in the air. He twisted and turned, unable to believe his senses. It was the reality. He was flying.

"Eagle! I can fly!" His euphoric scream echoed inside the forest.

That was when the unimaginable thing happened.

A figure flew towards him. One that was similar to the shadows he saw every midnight. It flew up higher and higher in a parabolic trajectory. Then it stopped mid air before it flew downwards similarly to the way it flew up. The speed increased as it drove down the sky, and passed the flying snake.

Realization hit the snake. The eagle was not flying.

Impulsively the snake drove down faster than ever to catch the falling figure. He successfully did so. Only then, he finally saw the eagle's true form- a horrendous mass of meat and feather mixed together like a poorly drawn figure of a toddler. Its face was out of place, being untouched and pure unlike the rest of its body.

"Do you know," The eagle whispered softly, "That an eagle can only live up to 40 years old."

"My wings grew heavier, and my beak was bent. I can barely eat anything. I can barely catch anything but my own body."

The snake grew horrified. "Are you saying that you...the 'juice'..." His eyes widened in horror. "No...NOOO!"

"I can't make you into a divine being called human. I am no god. But at least, you can be a dragon."

"'Retain your characteristic, little dragon, and live on. My time has ended. It is your turn now.' Those are the eagle's last word."

By then, everyone in the hall was mesmerized by Inui's tale. A complete opposite image of the past. He was showered with interest, for once.

"My time, and every graduate's time in Seigaku Tennis team has ended. We have created a legacy, and it is now the new generation's turn to continue it."

"A snake with a peach and a ponta. We shall leave this legacy unto you."

"Congratulation, viper. You are now a dragon."

"The rest is up to you."

As the last word was spoken, the hall broke into a torrent of applause. Everyone stood up and applauded the data master, who was leaving the stage. Amongst the crowd was the dragon, who did not clap his hands along with everyone else. His head was lowered to the ground, with his arms shielding his eyes from the reality.

"Thank you, Inui-senpai..."

Note: Apparently the whole story about eagle having to undergo 5 months of rebirth is a hoax...

and this folktale probably didn't exist anywhere on earth...

and if you were there in the hall, would you applaud this speech?