Title: Prince of Feathers
Author: AJ
Rating: K/ T-ish?
Warnings: Slight Slash, language and unbeta'd.
Pairings: Tezuka/Fuji and some Kurogane/Fai
Summary: A journey brings four unusual persons to the Seigaku tennis club. At the same time, Fuji has problems of his own.
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.
Note: A two-shot. For Tsubasa RC, it takes place after volume 8 (with those fluffy creatures). And for PoT, it kind of ignores the timeline since I have a bad memory. Sorry for grammatical errors, I still have a lot to learn xD.

Prince of Feathers
AJ

"Oi, Echizen, who are they?"

"What makes you I think I know, Momo-senpai?"

If it makes you wonder who 'they' were, no-one seemed to be capable in giving a proper answer on that question. There could be answers such as 'Strangers' or 'Dunno', but that were answers nobody seemed to appreciate.

So, when the four strangers – who had occupied one of the street tennis courts – began to stir, the tennis players and co just watched in curiosity, minus Echizen who found his Ponta more interesting.

"Hmm.. Kuro-rin, you make an excellent cushion!" Exclaimed the lanky blonde one whilst stretching. As response he got an irritated groan and a harsh push which made him crash back onto the ground. He made a soft oof! sound and let out a long, fake whine.

"Damnit, don't use me as landing spot, mage!" Another voice spoke, or rather, scolded as a well-build man pulled himself onto his feet. "And stop whining, what are you? Four?!"

It went unnoticed by the blonde and raven haired guy that they had onlookers, but not by the smaller brunet who carefully touched the arm of the ninja. Hesitating a bit, he finally murmured "Kurogane-san…" when the raven haired male made a hand movement towards his sword. "Please.. calm down."

Kurogane narrowed his eyes at the small brunet. The blonde was still whining and calling him ridiculous nicknames, but he did his best to ignore him. Although, he was gritting his teeth so he probably could still hear him. "Why? Someone has to learn that idiot a lesson."

"People are.. erm, watching."

He turned around and fell curious eyes upon him. Because of his foul mood he growled in frustration. "What?!" He snapped at the onlookers, his hand resting on his sword.

As the threatening rant began Momoshiro found himself step back in something that resembled fear. He now knew for sure, cosplayers were the worst sort of people and had real looking, shiny swords. His eyes were set on said sword, causing him to grin in an absolute nervous, helpless way. "…Echizen?"

No response.

Tearing his eyes away from the shiny sword he came to the conclusion his younger friend wasn't beside him anymore. By the stairs, he saw a glimpse of the white hat of the boy, going down. "Oi, Echizen! Hey, wait up!" He called and retreated (read: fled) from the tennis courts, leaving others behind.

"Made made dane."

A week later

Morning practises were held early on the day. Of course, otherwise they wouldn't be morning practises. But that didn't made it easier for some of the members to leave their comfortable, warm bed alone for a morning full of running, swinging, matches and Inui Juice (the latter only of the Regulars, sadly enough in Inui's opinion).

Like Horio, with his two years of tennis experience (although, one would think that he was lying through his teeth if you saw him play). In the mornings, the redhead fancied his warm bed and teddy bear more than sweating and picking up balls.

Oh, he loved tennis, that wasn't the problem. He only lacked the willpower to get up from his bed and walk to school. When he was finally there, nothing could stop him, but before that, he just wanted his teddy bear. Honestly, who could blame him.

But his flashy shirt always put him in a good mood in the mornings.

However, this morning seemed slightly different from others. He did his daily routine as usual: he got up early for tennis practise, changed, ate breakfast his mother supplied and packed his bag. Only, packing the bag was today's problem. His tennis racket was nowhere in sight.

He frowned his caterpillar-brows (A/N; I couldn't help myself) and rummaged through his bag once again. Nope, no demolished racket. He jumped up from the floor he was sitting on and looked around in his room. For outsiders, it might seemed impossible, finding a particular object in said room, but actually, Horio had an excellent storage plan for all his stuff. Sports gear usually found their way under his bed – along with empty cans of drinks. School stuff like books and sheets were perched onto his desk, and strangely enough also sprawled all over the floor. The chair by his desk was meant for all his clothes – well, most of them.

Thus, it wasn't hard to guess Horio first searched under the never cleaned part of the room; under his bed. He found some cans, a tennis ball, a too small shoe (the left one had mysteriously vanished one day) and some useless rubbish.

This, Horio decided after a quarter of a hour searching without results, was a bad omen for a terrifying day.

Only not for him.

Fuji Syuusuke, resident genius of Seishun Gakuen, was on a roll today. He had mentally scared his brother, Yuuta, once again, earning himself a dignified 'Aniki!' and a faint, but frustrated blush. A mere five minutes later Yuuta was leaving, yelling at no-one in particular he'd had it and promised he would never come back for the weekends ever again.

That was the only promise he always broke somehow (Yumiko's cooking was the major reason, Yuuta told himself over and over again. It did not involve in any way his annoying annoying Aniki).

Fuji had only laughed and waved, accompanied by the words; "Avoid Miluzi!"

The small interaction – no matter how absurd – made the protective older brother in him flan with happiness.

Putting scaring his poor brother aside, he was still having a wonderful morning. His cacti were healthy and the sun was shining when he woke up smiling. The only gloomy presence came from his older sister, who had caringly put a hand on his shoulder saying he had a difficult week lying ahead of him.

-- This line break is provided by Ore-sama –-

Smiling, the genius walked down the path towards his destination. He broke his pace however when a white creature snuck (snuck wasn't the right word, Fuji told himself after seeing how the creature bounced) suspiciously around the corner, obviously in search of something. Probably its master, he thought happily and followed the white… cat? He shrugged, he had seen weirder things before, thanks to his lovely sister.

"We're lost?" Said a boyish voice in concern as the brunet also turned left. His vision became occupied with a boy and a girl. The white creature was perched on the girl's left shoulder.

"Fai-san and Kurogane-san said it was somewhere around here, we'll find it," answered the determined young lady.

Taking a second glance at them Fuji noticed they were wearing the same uniform as him. Still, he cocked his head. He hadn't seen them before. Of course, he didn't knew the whole school by face but that didn't matter.

The boy with the brown hair nodded and a few seconds later they started walking again, towards where Fuji was standing with a thoughtful look on his face for moment, before it was recovered to his usual smile.

Strangely enough, the genius wasn't surprised when the two of them took a halt in front of him. Surely, they had noticed he's wearing the same uniform. And they had mentioned they were lost. And he had never seen them before. If you had some common sense – which Fuji was thankfully blessed with – you could figure it out on your own.

The two glanced at each other before the boy took the initiative. "Erm… excuse us, but do you happen to go to Seishun Gakuen?"

The smile just became brighter. "Saa… Yes, I go there."

"Then, do you know the way to, er, school?" the boy continued asking.

Somehow, Fuji was tempted to say 'no', just for the heck of it.

Though, he did not. He had manners and was supposed to be a nice guy in the eyes of strangers (his poor teammates and little brother knew better). So he smiled kindly. "you can walk with me," he offered.

The girl with the reddish-brown hair was the one to response this time. "Thank you very much, ano..."

"Fuji. Fuji Syuusuke."

She was the cute kind of type, Fuji noted absentmindedly after seeing her bright and genuine smile. She had an aura of pureness floating around her. The boy, however, was completely different. He had the roughness as if he already had faced the hardships of the world.

He suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the boy.

The talk was mainly trivial, but Fuji found out their names – Sakura and Syaoran – nonetheless and that they had just transferred into Seishun. He had snapped his sapphire eyes open when the white creature began talking ("Mokona is Mokona!") and asked them with curiosity if it was some kind of furby, or another sort of soft robot.

The two had just blinked at him with a face that told him 'Furby? Robot?'.

He had let the subject drop. But the unsettling feeling in his stomach had begun growing from that point on.

"Here it is, I hope you can find your way from here on- I have practice to att.." His voice began drifting off as they arrived at the school gate. A slightly orange racket had caught his interest. It was lying completely forgotten on the ground.

A flashback came crashing into his mind of the day the team had dubbed 'The cursed racket'. Ah, good memories.

The genius faced the new transfer students again, smiling an apology. "Sorry, but I really have to go. If you have any questions, just come and find me. I'm in class 3-6. It was nice meeting you."

Sakura nodded. "Thank you for your help, Fuji-san."

By that, he left and picked up the overused racket. His eyes fluttered open when his pale fingers touched the frame of the racket. A slight draining was felt through his whole body - giving him a faint shock - not to mention the iris of each eye had enlarged abruptly – covering the pupils along the way with a pale blue colour.

This all took place in mere seconds. Not long enough for him to notice, minus the sudden dazed feeling. Fuji shrugged it off with little thought and took the racket along to morning practise.

He never heard the abrupt "Mekyo!"(1) coming from the manju-bun-like creature.

TBC.

AJ; Yes, this is really a Tezuka/Fuji fic. Trust me x3. Part one of two done! Till next time, folks.

(1) : Mokona always says Mekyo when the presence of a feather (pieces of Sakura's memory) is revealed.