Disclaimer: All characters belong to Takeshi Konomi
Warnings: Spoilers for the entire series and mature-ish language
Notes: I made some (a lot of) changes to the set up, but they're explained in the story. Like how they're in high school, not middle school. No romance, meaning no pairings.

Chapter One: Echizen Ryoma vs The World

"This place smells tasty!" Kikumaru said upon sticking his head through the open doorway. "Let's eat here." He bounced into the restaurant, the other juniors and freshmen leisurely following behind him.

"It's a bit greasier than I would have liked…" Oishi remarked a bit cautiously. Indeed, judging from the food on other people's tables, the meals were quite unhealthy, swimming in strange oily juices.

"Live a little, senpai," Momoshiro said, waving off Oishi's worries. He sat himself down at a large booth, gesturing for his teammates to do the same. All eight of them sat themselves down heavily, some moreso than others. Tezuka hadn't said a word since they had lost, but the Seigaku tennis team was smarter than to think Tezuka could be giving them the silent treatment. Their vice captain was probably just trying to think of why they lost and how they could prevent it from happening again.

Kawamura sighed. He was tired and hungry. Usually they would go to his sushi restaurant, but that had become a place only for celebration. They all agreed that the restaurant was reserved for victory, not failure. Moreover, because they weren't at his father's restaurant, he knew they wouldn't want to order anything expensive. This food would not be free.

"We all played very well, though," Fuji commiserated, patting Kikumaru's head. The redhead had his elbows on the table while the heels of his palms held up his heavy and weary head.

"How could we have lost?" he complained loudly.

"Excuse me," a terse voice intoned. All eight looked up to see a young boy, surely no older than thirteen, standing before their table with a white baseball cap casting a shadow on his annoyed expression.

"Yeah?" Momo asked quite rudely. What did this young punk want? Said punk looked at him blankly. "What's your order?" he asked.

Kaidoh glared at the young kid. "Are you supposed to be our waiter?" he asked, or more accurately, hissed. The boy was surely too young to be working.

"Yes. Drinks? Appetizers?" he continued concisely.

Most of the team was flustered. Kikumaru, probably wanting to keep the intriguing boy there as long as possible, asked, "What drinks are there?"

The boy looked exasperated and listed a bunch of drinks: the usual water, iced tea, and assortment of carbonated beverages. There was a prolonged silence in which the more unsubtle tennis players merely stared at the young man and the more polite players wondered why there was such a silence in the first place.

"I'll have water," Tezuka said first to get his teammates started.

Oishi sent a relieved smile over to Tezuka. "Ah, water for me as well."

"You don't have juice?" Kikumaru pouted. He didn't want a soda that would keep him wired all night. Soda was a victory drink. Juice was a healthy but tasty alternative for this occasion, he thought to himself.

"We might," the boy said simply, his eyes lazily floated their gaze around the room as if he were bored. He looked back up at them and raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

"Just get me water," Kaidoh growled. The kid was rude, he thought. It didn't surprise him that such a greasy, dirty diner would hire a brat like him.

Momoshiro rolled his eyes and smiled at their waiter. "Ignore his rudeness," he said, glaring at Kaidoh. "I'll have coke."

Kawamura and Inui both ordered water as Fuji looked at their waiter, apparently dissatisfied. Of course, no one could really figure out what could be running through the genius's mind at any given moment.

"How old are you?" he asked bluntly. Even Tezuka could not hide his surprise at Fuji's lack of decorum.

"Fujiko!" surprisingly, it was Kikumaru who called him out on his rudeness.

"I'll just get you water," the boy said neutrally, walking away.

"Fujiko!" Kikumaru whined again.

"Saa, Kikumaru, I was just curious." Fuji smiled and leaned back into the booth. The smile, of course, meant nothing good, but none of the regulars or freshmen could do a thing about it. Conversation did not come easily after a defeat, especially since they had come so far. This year was the first time in ages that Seishun Gakuen had made it to the Nationals, though that in itself was a surprising accomplishment.

"You guys should be proud of yourselves!" Momoshiro declared. "Before you guys, the team didn't have a chance at even getting to Kantou!"

Oishi chuckled and glanced at Tezuka. "You mean, before Tezuka. Last year, they made it to Kantou."

Kikumaru rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because they had Yamoto-senpai and Tezuka! I'm surprised we even made it, with only the juniors as talent."

"Eiji!" Oishi scolded him.

"What? The third years this year all suck. Tezuka should be captain, and you all should be regulars, ne, Taka?" Kikumaru said, elbowing the mild-mannered Kawamura.

"Eh? I don't know if I'd be good enough to be a regular," Kawamura said, scratching the back of his head. His meekness was a misleading personality trait that seemed to disappear on the court. Once he had a tennis racket in hand, it was obvious to everyone that he ought to have been a regular that year.

"Of course you are," Fuji answered. "I must agree with Kikumaru. Taka is very talented, and could have easily beat some of the seniors. None of our senpai are as good as you, Tezuka. And none of the doubles are as great a team as Kikumaru and Oishi."

"You know, we'd have one less idiot on the regular team if you'd just apply yourself, Fuji-senpai," Kaidoh said simply. It was a miracle that they even had Kaidoh there. He was well-known for being a loner, and they had only barely managed to rope him into having dinner with them.

"No fun in that. Maybe at this next ranking match, I'll try. After all, it seems that Yuuta is settling into St. Rudolph," Fuji said happily, his tight smile the only indicator of how much he detested the thought of his little brother at another school. Yuuta hadn't even made it to the second month before he dropped out of the tennis club. He had left Seigaku by the third month.

Tezuka looked over at the assorted people at the table. Such a strange group. He knew, after talking to their current captain, that he would be taking the reigns once the third years moved on to college. "Next year, we'll beat Rikkai Dai. That freshman with the red eyes won't be nearly as much as a surprise. Though I did think he used some underhanded tactics."

"Damn straight!" Momo almost shouted, "That kid—"

"Is your age. And therefore not a kid to you," Kaidoh interrupted and took a sip of water. Wait, when did the drinks arrive? He looked around at the table and realized that all the drinks were perfectly placed before each of them, even though it seemed no one had noticed their waiter breeze by.

"As I was saying, that Kirihara guy was totally aiming for the body parts. He was purposely trying to incapacitate the other player! And to think they paired him up with Sugiyama-buchou! Cocky bas—"

Oishi clamped a hand over his kohai's mouth. "I also found it insulting that they matched their freshman player against the player who, from an outsider's perspective, should've been our best. Especially in the Nationals. But next year, we'll get them."

"They won the nationals last year as well. They've won the Kanto Regionals for fourteen straight years. This year will be their fifteenth," Inui suddenly joined the conversation. "From what I've deduced of the other teams, they don't stand a chance. Makinofuji Gakuen only has one good doubles team and their second year players seem very inexperienced. Though without their two best players, Chitose Senri and Tachibana Kippei, I don't see how Shishigaku could stand a chance against Makinofuji. And although Rikkai Dai is losing Nishiki, their second year players will more than make up for his loss."

Kikumaru scratched his head. "Meaning…"

"Makinofuji will win against Shishigaku in the semifinals but lose to Rikkai Dai in the finals," Inui finished confidently.

"Do you know what you'll order?" The boy who had taken their drink orders was back. He still looked as young as ever, but some of the players thought it suspect; the kid was swift and his eyes were tired. The silence that had been put on hold when the boy had left suddenly rose again, choking all nine of them. There was no logical reason for the hold up, but it seemed that no one was willing to break the awkward quiet.

"I don't have all night," the boy said rudely, glancing at his watch. "And neither do you. The diner closes at midnight." Maybe the boy himself was what killed all conversation. His sharp eyes and impatience were certainly off-putting enough.

Kikumaru jerked around, probably to check his own watch. In an instant, they all saw in slow motion as his stray hand knocked into a glass of bright yellow orange juice. In the next anticlimactic moment, the waiter simply caught the glass and righted it effortlessly, with nary a drop spilled.

"Well, we never got menus," Kawamura said reasonably, somewhat surprised at the boy's show of speed. It was true, that they were never offered menus, but it was also true that they had neither asked for menus nor looked for them.

The boy blinked at them once or twice, and the second-year had to stifle a laugh at the boy's bemused face that was quickly turning exasperated. "You mean, those menus?" the boy asked, pointing at a stack of menus at the end of their booth near the window. It probably hadn't helped that the unapproachable Kaidoh had been sitting near the window across from the stoic Tezuka—who might or might not have been blushing in embarrassment.

"Oh." It wasn't clear who said the word, but it was clear that they were all thinking it.

"I'll be back in five minutes," the boy said deadpan, knowing that their own knowledge of their oversight was better than any derogatory comment he could invent. Besides, he wanted to talk to the idiots as little as possible.

"We're quite astute," Fuji said with a smile. "Hm. His eyes are brilliant." His sarcasm was always hard to identify because of his immovable smile, but in this situation, it was obvious. As for his observation about his eyes, well, it was Fuji. No one was sure what his sexual orientation was anyway. He grabbed a menu and decided to order the tastiest thing on there.

"What're you ordering, Fuji-senpai?" Momoshiro asked after looking at the number of unhealthy items listed on the cheap plastic menus.

"A3. Looks good," Fuji answered with a smile. The tennis players all paled magnificently once they glanced at their own menus.

"Eh? Fujiko, that's the Heart Attack Heat Burger!" Kikumaru pouted. He was accustomed to Fuji's eccentric taste, but this seemed like it was pushing some sort of boundary.

"Sounds good, doesn't it?"

So. Tired.

He performed his tasks by rote, keeping a list of things he needed to do turning in his head. He couldn't risk forgetting a single thing.

Get dinner

Do summer homework

Wash clothes

Feed Karupin

Help Kaa-san.

What was that other one? There must have been something else. Oh yeah, groceries, he thought. He absentmindedly stuck his hand in his pocket and jingled the change. No bills. Was today a pay day? No, it was close but he wasn't paid until the end of the month. And judging by the lightness in both his pockets, it seemed he had little left from the previous month's money.

Did Kaa-san get paid yet? He wondered. Most of her money went to the remainder of her medical bills that weren't completely covered by the healthcare system, so that was out. Oh, he cursed, he still hadn't sent in the down payment for tuition. How long could Rikkai Dai Fuzoku wait for him? He didn't have to pay much—after all, Ryoma was quiet but he wasn't stupid. And Rikkai Dai would apparently do anything for a great tennis player who also had a good brain.

Even though he was a freshman.

"We're ready to order, waiter-san!" the hyper redhead shouted from across the diner. Ryoma growled, not for the first time, that it sucked living in a country where tipping was not a common courtesy. He remembered eating at restaurants in America as a child and leaving a dollar or two on the table. Back then, he didn't think it could make a difference, but after a full day of dealing with insufferable adults and arrogant kids, a dollar per table would have been a godsend to Ryoma.

He walked up to the table of rambunctious boys and stood there with his arms crossed. "Well?" he asked. He doused the temptation to glance at the clock; it seemed that midnight was long in coming.

Each boy listed some sort of sandwich or salad, the Heart Attack Heat being one of them, and finally got to the last order. He stood there for a second, waiting for the last boy, a boy with short spiky black hair and glinting glasses. Ryoma couldn't see his eyes at all.

"How are you taking our orders?" the boy asked. Ryoma raised an eyebrow. It had come up before, the fact that he never wrote anything down, but no one had ever been so blunt. His age had also come up before. But once again, no group had ever been so blunt.

"Does it matter? What do you want?" Usually he'd answer politely, but these boys were getting on his nerves. No one was allowed to be that casually blunt toward Echizen Ryoma.

"A Caesar salad will be fine," the boy settled, apparently satisfied to some extent.

Ryoma turned quickly and dragged himself into the kitchen. "Two salads with vinaigrette, one of those without croutons, one Caesar salad, one Heart Attack Heat with wasabi on the side sans pickles, three hamburgers, two of those without pickles and the one with pickles should have extra tomato, and one BLT with extra B," he called out as he entered the kitchen.

A man in an apron that was white long ago snatched a spatula from the sink and headed to the grills. "Echizen, you're gonna hafta put the salads together, 'cause Minato had ta leave early. Well, get on it! And write down the burger order, cantcha? We ain't all geniuses."

Ryoma quickly scribbled down the orders of burgers that needed cooking plus one extra that he hoped his boss wouldn't notice and started throwing lettuce into bowls. He knew the lack of effort that went into the food he had a part in making, and snorted when he realized that even if Japan were a country that approved of tipping, he'd never earn a cent directly from the customers.

His service was bad—but he knew he could improve if there was a tip in his future—and the food wasn't much better. He had the salads thrown together well enough that they looked edible, but the burgers weren't near ready. Silently, Ryoma took the patties and put them into buns as his boss was cooking them. Soon enough, all the food was ready, buns in baskets and salads in bowls. With expertise, for he had been doing this job since the end of July, he had a salad bowl in his right hand and three baskets balanced on the same arm.

Ryoma had the skill of working without talking, and so as soon as he had the four dishes on the table, he went back to the kitchen and had the next four.

"You're so fast, thank you!" the sensible, kind-looking boy said. Ryoma wasn't quite sure how to react to one of the boys when he wasn't being brash, so he just nodded and left.

"Echizen, clean up da bathroom. Some old guy tried the Heart Attack Heat and left somethin' nice for you on'a bathroom floor," his boss snickered. Ryoma ignored the teasing, uncaring of whether it was well-intentioned or not.

He was tired. So very tired.

"I gotcha bill right 'ere," a greasy overweight man drawled, surprising them all.

"What happened to our waiter?" Momoshiro asked, looking around the disturbing man and toward the darkened kitchen. The rest of the diner was empty.

"Doncha realize it's closing time? I sent 'im home a while ago since you all was takin' so long."

"Dear," Oishi muttered, looking at his watch. It wasn't quite midnight, though. "Was he okay? He seemed tired." The rest of the Seigaku boys weren't sure if that wasn't just his usual state of being.

The man stiffened the slightest bit but quickly relaxed, laying the bill on the table, controlled and deliberate. "I don't know nothing 'bout 'im, so just pay and have a nice night."

He left and started to turn off the rest of the lights, leaving only the one above them on.

"Well, that wasn't suspicious at all," Oishi muttered, looking sideways at the man's departing figure.

"Don't look too much into it," ordered Tezuka. He had become accustomed to giving orders, not because he was the bossy type, but because people wanted to do what he asked. He wasn't himself sure why.

The tennis players all shrugged and paid the bill, not bothering to collect their change. Quickly, Tezuka and Oishi shepherded them all out and toward the last trains that were running.

"Oi! Your change!" the fat man shouted after they had gone a ways.

"We don't want it!" Kikumaru shouted back with a smile. "I wonder if he'll keep the change or give it to Ochibi-chan."

"Ochibi-chan?" Kaidoh sputtered.

Kikumaru shrugged. "Well waiter-san didn't give us a name."

"We'll come back and see if he got the change. It seemed he needed it," stated Inui, "One must wonder... that is, I would say he was performing at, at most, 60% capacity."

The walk to the trains would not be as short as Tezuka hoped.

"Why?"

Tezuka wasn't sure who had asked, but knew the question was in everyone's mind. Why did he need to? or, Why was he so indifferent? even, Why is he so interesting?

"Why indeed," Inui answered. No one asked how Inui could figure out such a calculation because, after all, this was Inui. Tezuka wondered about the boy. He had good balance, quick reflexes, and sharp eyes.

"He would be a good tennis player," Tezuka said, not intending to have it heard by all of his teammates.

But they heard and they all agreed, none having anything more to say on the matter.

"Kaa-san? Mom?" Ryoma called, foregoing the usual, 'I'm home.' He usually didn't get an answer anyway. "Mom?" he wondered, walking around their small apartment. "Mom, I brought some dinner home—Mom!"

He didn't usually come home to his mother sitting half-dazed on her futon, staring at nothing. Of course, it happened sometimes.

"Mom, get up. No, get up," he coaxed her into a standing position. This wasn't the first time he had to bring her from her stupor. "Are you okay?"

"Nanjiroh, that you?" she asked in English, her voice catching in her throat as she called for her husband. Her hand was reaching, searching, and gently alighted on his cheek. "Nanjiroh, you're so young…"

"No Kaa-san, it's me, Ryoma. Remember? Ryoma," he murmured to her softly as he led her to a chair in the kitchen. He unpacked a burger from his backpack, wondering if feeding themselves junk food every night for dinner would be a big detriment to their health. Even so, his mother could put on some weight. She'd been so skinny and fragile-looking for months.

Ryoma had taken to 'accidentally' writing off an extra burger or two be made just so he could take the extras home. His boss had become suspicious after the first few days he did such a thing, so he resorted to only one burger every few days.

"Mom, you have to eat," Ryoma told her. He didn't know where this gentleness came from, because he was only ever gentle with Karupin. Who was currently meowing at him, for food most likely.

He pulled her bowl out and went searching for cat food. He looked everywhere, finding nothing. "Sorry, didn't have money for groceries this week. Here, Karupin," Ryoma said, tearing a portion of the greasy meat patty off and dropping it into Karupin's bowl. What else? Oh, he needed to do the laundry. But really, that could be done on the weekend when he had more time.

"Mom?" he turned back to his mother, hoping she had a hold of herself by now.

"Ryoma?" she answered. Ryoma breathed a great sigh of relief.

He joined her at the table, sitting across from the half-dazed woman. "Yeah, it's me. Why don't you eat and I'll help you with the stuffed animals later?"

"Oh Ryoma, you're such a good boy. Have you eaten?" she asked, taking out the pickles and onions from the greasy burger.

Ryoma took whatever was rejected from her burger and munched on it. "Yeah," he lied easily, "I went out with a friend." He had no qualms about lying anymore. It made his mother feel better, and it wasn't like she'd ever figure it out. She ate in silence, a slow affair, but Ryoma didn't want to rush her. Before she was finished, he left and hauled the huge plastic bag of stuffed animals to the kitchen table. The sowing kit was much easier to move there.

Ever since his mother lost her job in the states, she hadn't been able to find a stable, well-paid one. She had tried all sorts of office jobs, those that weren't nearly as prestigious as her job as a lawyer back in LA, but could never hold them. Ryoma wondered if the move to Japan was worth it.

"How was school today?" she asked him, pausing in her dinner.

"School doesn't start again until September," he reminded her. She just looked up at him, staring blankly.

"Is that so?" she asked noncommittally.

"But I still hang out with my friends, playing tennis, stuff like that—oh, and we're doing our summer homework together. It's fun," he lied again. Lying was becoming far too easy for him.

She didn't quite grin, but it was close enough. Ryoma didn't get to see her smile enough. "Watching you play tennis, it's almost like watching Nanjiroh...So you like Rikkai Dai? Even though you've had to skip a year?"

He didn't mind that he was in a grade above what he should have been. Classes weren't that much harder. Rikkai Dai, which was the best school for tennis in all of Japan and maybe even the world, was a three-year school like all schools in Japan. If he enrolled in a school at his real grade, he would be there for one year and have to worry about entrance exams and tests for the entirety of that year and worry about gaining entrance to the Rikkai. At least this way, he could just forward the tests and scores from his American school, which were impressive records in and of themselves, and Rikkai Dai decided his admission upon those—and upon his junior tennis titles. Those were very helpful in the admission process.

He nodded in response to his mother's questions and went back to the stuffed animals. He pulled one out—in this case, all of them were the same: pink elephants. Pink, eyeless elephants. Ryoma started working before his mother was finished eating; he wasn't sure when the elephants needed to be finished.

He had sewn two eyes onto an elephant and decided that having eyes didn't improve the elephant at all. If anything, it made the stuffed animal look creepier. He wondered what poor soul in America would pick up such a hideous thing and find it cute. He imagined a teenage boy running to school, dropping by a dollar store to find a last-minute birthday gift for his girlfriend, and picking up a pink elephant with a tag on its bottom saying, 'Made in Japan.'

Ryoma glared at his handiwork, annoyed that his thoughts led him to sew crookedly. He wavered between cutting the thread and redoing it or leaving it as it was.

And his thoughts continued to roam. From some sort of company 'Secret Santa', in which people regift useless junk that they never wanted, a woman would receive a nearly immaculate pink elephant with one eye askew.

He moved on to the next elephant without fixing the last one, figuring that in this case, quantity was better than quality.

And the mother who received such a useless gift from the Christmas exchange would bring the thing home and present it to her young son.

After all, the crooked eye made the elephant different from the rest; it was special.

And her son, a spoiled brat, would play with it until it bored him and then throw the elephant in a dusty room, filled with all other sorts of stuffed animals that were Made in China, or Made in Indonesia, or Made in South Korea…

No, Ryoma shook his head. He didn't like that scenario at all. He moved on to the next elephant, having already done three that were as perfect as pink elephants could be.

And the boy would grow up, perhaps into a responsible young adult. He'd donate all of his old toys to some kind of charity.

Ryoma emptied the plastic bag and threw the finished ones in there, since the finished were starting to outnumber the unfinished.

And the charity would wrap all sorts of toys and give them out for Christmas, to children whom Santa never visited. To a child who had never before held a toy in her hands. She would cherish the toy and maybe name it. Heffalump, after the elephant in her old, used books. After all, this elephant was in good condition, and deserved a good name. She would play with it until she handed it over to a younger sibling would love it just as much as she had, or until the thread holding its eyes withered with old age.

"Nanjiroh?"

He was swiftly carried away from his fantasy and snapped his eyes toward his mother in concern. "No, he's not here, Kaa-san."

"Ryoma."

"Yes, I'm here."

"…I'm sorry."

"I know." Ryoma knew the conversation ended there. She apologized too much, he thought. It wasn't her fault that she sorely missed her husband. He missed his dad too, though his connection with the old man was never as strong as his parents' with each other was.

Silently, his mother picked up a pink elephant and joined Ryoma in sewing the eyes. The job didn't earn a lot of income, not nearly enough to pay for the apartment, food, and tuition to his school, but it was the most they could do at the moment. And at least they weren't going it alone.

Ryoma was a fighter. And he knew his mother was a fighter too. Although everything seemed tough at the moment, and the world was out to get him, Ryoma would persevere. After all, he was getting better at endurance matches.

Most days, people ignored Echizen Ryoma. He was quiet; brilliant but quiet. He was good at tennis; incredibly good at tennis. He drew the female population to himself, but not purposefully. When asked, the girls all agreed that he had "soulful eyes, such intense eyes, the eyes of someone who's going places." But he ignored mostly everyone.

So in the tennis club, people ignored him. Mostly.

"Echizen, trying out for the regulars?" one member sneered. Frankly, Ryoma knew he had a better chance of getting into the regulars than the guy who was taunting him. So he just breezed by the loudmouth, all the while testing the strings on his racket.

The ranking matches were today, and the seniors who participated in the National championships more than a week ago would no longer be a problem. The September rankings were really just a formality, Ryoma thought. After all, there weren't any real tournaments or games at least until the District Preliminary Tournament in April, and there was another ranking match right before that. Unless he counted the Newcomer Tournament, but Ryoma still wasn't sure if he counted that. There was a tournament, not a team tournament, that was held in the spring that he was thinking of, but it was too far in the future to dwell upon now.

"We've worked out the schedules for the ranking tournaments. If you are a freshman who had wished not to participate, you may stay and watch the ranking matches or you may go home," Nishiki-buchou announced.

From what Ryoma saw, Nishiki was not the strongest player in the tennis team. Ryoma had joined this grade with all the other freshmen, noting that of all the players, Yukimura was the best. The very best. Followed closely by Sanada and Yanagi.

"Echizen Ryoma, you're up!"

Some were surprised, especially the second-year who had teased Ryoma mere minutes before. They probably hadn't thought he would participate. He'd arrvied in Japan toward the end of tennis season anyway, and so appeared to be a freshman from nowhere. But Ryoma glanced at the Three Demons, knowing that they expected a lot from him. Ryoma was ambitious, but not stupid. He wasn't nearly as arrogant here as he was back in the states; back there, he knew he was the best. Here, he wasn't sure. Here, this was the country in which Oyaji learned his life lessons to pass on to his son. And if Ryoma had learned anything from the man, it was that he still had a lot more to work on.

So, with the knowledge that at any point he could be up against one of the Three Demons, he walked onto the court.

Fifteen minutes later, he walked off, disappointed at the lack of skill in his opponent. After looking at the set up, he realized that none of regulars were in his bracket. In fact, he would guess that he was paired with the most pathetic players on the team except for one: Kirihara Akaya. The seniors looked at the freshman, some in awe and some in resentment. It wasn't every day that a freshman beat a pretty strong third-year. Ryoma would object.

But now Echizen Ryoma had issued his challenge to the school and to the world. His eyes glowed in anticipation, saying, "Mada mada da ne."

Next chapter: Echizen Ryoma vs. Kirihara Akaya!