Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.

A/N: I'm back in the Prince of Tennis fandom with some Rikkai-team-angst! Been a while since I wrote Prince of Tennis...hm, may be rusty in terms of characterisation and canon plotline. The beginning half I wrote like quite a while ago, actually, and the second half...after I entered the FMA fandom - which I am so so so deeply in love with right now.

This won't be a very long fic, maybe just a few chapters, I don't know, three or four?

Oh, and yes, I will update my on-going fics, just...later.

Warnings: Language (swears etc.)

On the Pedestal, and Off
-Chapter 1-
By: LainellaFay

"Let's dominate the middle school circuit!"

A promise the two of them made together, cross my heart and hope to die, should they fail to achieve it. Yukimura smiled at his friend, Sanada, who looked slightly grouchy, but Yukimura knew that he was happy; smiling on the inside maybe. Yukimura turned to look at the tennis courts in Rikkaidai Fuzoku, where the two of them chose to enter for middle school. The seniors were strong, strong enough to win the Kantou Tournament for multiple years, but not strong enough.

Yukimura's face hardened. He prayed for the best talents to enter in his year. He wasn't aiming for mediocre. Their only goal was at the top; to be the number one – Nationals Champions. Yukimura didn't know what was waiting for him at the top, but he figured it was worth a try. After all, there wasn't anything in the world that was nothing but glorious.

Yukimura found the first member besides Sanada and himself to be part of his winning team. Yanagi Renji, a boy with a weird haircut, but good. Yukimura approached him the next day, offering him a place on the regulars, which he had already planned to set up by the time he was in his second year. Yanagi was slightly taken aback, but smiled and agreed, knowing of Yukimura's plan before the latter could even explain. That was the first and last time Yanagi managed to read Yukimura's mind, for he became more weary after that.

There were others who Yukimura considered, a boy with a smirk etched on his face and attention-grabbing silver hair; a calm and composed brown haired boy; a hyper active red head and a bald darker skinned boy. They had the potential, much more than the other imbeciles who only wanted to be in a famed club, but not at the level Yukimura wanted yet. But he kept an eye on them just in case.

Yukimura never counted on being chosen to be a regular, together with Sanada and Yanagi. It didn't matter, what luck, he thought. He turned to Sanada, it looked like they could fulfill their goal that very year. To say the least, Rikkaidai swept the floor with their opponents and left with the championship flag and trophy in their hands. Yukimura, Sanada, and Yanagi made it big in the middle school circuit: The Three Demons, they were called. Yukimura hid a smirk. Good, let rumours fly, leave the opponents shaking in their boots; they would win again the next year.

.~.

Finally, the strongest team Yukimura dreamed of. Consisting of himself, Sanada, Yanagi, Yagyuu, Niou, Marui, Jackal and a freshman, Kirihara. They could do this. Yukimura flashed a smile at Sanada and knew that, at that moment, they would fulfill their promise. With this team, they could do it.

He turned to address the new regulars. "I have only one thing to say." The atmosphere became tense, and the regulars stood even straighter, waiting for him to continue. "We're representatives of our school, needless to say, we aim to protect our championship. However, I do not only aim to protect our championship." He paused, and glanced across their faces. "Our goal is to dominate the tournament. To set a new record. I'm not hoping for a near win, I want a clean one. One where it isn't "oh, we could have lost if we didn't do this or that", I want us to be a team where everyone look at us and shivers would run down their spines. That is all I'm expecting and will see from all of you. Practice will be tough, a single bit of nonsense and you'll be kicked off the regulars immediately. Understood?"

There was a moment of silence, as if waiting for his words to sink in. Yukimura smiled widely when he heard echoes of, "Yes sir!", a few moments later. Really, he couldn't have wished for better.

.~.

Niou is a trickster, but he doesn't mess around during practice. Marui had lower stamina, and Yukimura knew that it was harder for him to cope with the Spartan training they did nearly everyday, but he never made a single sound of complain. Kirihara was the youngest amongst them, but he kept up perfectly with the menu, and would even do more if it weren't for Yanagi who told him that over-training could cause injuries.

Yukimura completed his warm-up laps first and stood back, admiring the effort his teammates put in their training. Yukimura took a sip of water and wiped some perspiration off his forehead with his wristband. Yanagi went to stand next to him, his breath slightly laboured from the laps, and looked at Yukimura straight in the eye. Yukimura gazed back at the brown eyes and wondered how long it had been since he last saw them. A week? Maybe two?

"What is it, Renji?" Yanagi rarely opened his eyes, number one. Number two, the look in his eyes told Yukimura that it was something of importance.

"Seiichi, you haven't been training more than the menu have you?"

Yukimura was slightly startled, but he showed none of that on the outside. "What makes you say that?"

"Your muscles are strained. You took about a minute longer than your usual record to complete those laps."

Yukimura had known from the start, but Yanagi was sharper than he had imagined. "I'm fine, Renji. It's nothing to worry about."

"Seiichi," Yanagi didn't waver, "this is what I've been preventing Akaya from doing. It's not good to overwork your muscles, your body needs its rest too. I understand your determination, Seiichi, but you're – "

"I'm fine," Yukimura said sternly, interrupting Yanagi in mid-sentence. Yanagi pressed his lips tightly together and closed his eyes again. That conversation was over.

After tennis practice, Yukimura ignored Yanagi's warning and continued to push himself further at home, training until he literally collapsed. He had to fulfill their promise. Domination required strength, and strength only comes from practice.

.~.

A few weeks prior to the District Tournament, Yukimura fainted from overexertion.

When he awoke to find himself in the infirmary, Yanagi was standing by the bedside and Yukimura said, "Don't say I told you so."

Yanagi didn't, but carefully watched his teammate as Yukimura got up and headed to tennis practice. He made sure that Yukimura did less than the menu that day, much to the latter's annoyance. Although, he couldn't stop Yukimura from training more on his own after tennis practice.

Yukimura fainted a few more times after that, but he always shrugged it off, never heeding Yanagi's advice. Rikkaidai kept their championship for the second time.

.~.

For the first time in a long time, Yukimura Seiichi was scared.

Snow fell all around him, as his body lay on the cold and hard concrete. Yukimura heard Sanada yelling out his name, and multiple sets of footsteps dashing towards him. This was different from the others, he didn't black out immediately. Yukimura tried to move his body, he could barely feel his fingers, much less move them. His eyelids slowly became heavier and heavier, and Yukimura saw darkness.

Cancer…paralysis…

God has a funny way of treating his 'Child'. Yukimura bitterly laughed.

.~.

Whispers around the courts sounded like the buzzing of bees to Marui; persistent and annoying. It didn't help that their tennis jerseys were the colours of bumblebees. The ball whizzed past his left cheek. He hadn't noticed it coming. Marui heard Jackal say something behind him, saving the ball he missed. Marui didn't know what his doubles partner said, it was muffled out by the buzzing in his ears. Probably something about focusing, Marui guessed.

Marui took a swing, he missed. He thought he could reach it. But he didn't. Marui didn't know what had gotten into him. The court lines where blurred, the net seemed taller than normal, the ball was fuzzy – more fuzzy than it usually is. The damned buzzing in his ear. Marui shook his head vigorously and squeezed his eyes shut as he counted to ten. Slowly, as he paced his breathing. He reopened them. The ball was just on his right. His arm quickly shot out to volley it. He missed again. Marui growled irritably under his breath.

"Marui's not focusing. This reckless playing could cause injuries, Genichirou," Yanagi informed Sanada, who was supervising the match. Sanada had a deep frown, and lines on his forehead from furrowing his eyebrows for too long. Sanada nodded, a moment delayed, Yanagi noted. He wrote it in his notebook, torn and worn out from its usage.

"Marui!" barked Sanada, and the volley specialist halted in his motion. "Do drills with the first years until you can get your mind in the right place. We have no need for unfocused regulars getting themselves injured because of their foolishness."

Yanagi glanced at Sanada, realising that the latter wasn't really looking at the match. His eyes were looking in that direction, yes, but he didn't seem to be seeing it. Yanagi took down more notes on Sanada in his notebook. He ensured to write down the number of wrinkle lines on his forehead, the glaze over Sanada's eyes and the frown that was two millimetres deeper than normal.

Yanagi heard footsteps approaching them but his pen continued to fly across the page, his eyes never looking up. From the footsteps and voice that followed, Yanagi knew that it was Yagyuu.

"Sanada-kun, pardon me for being late. The Student Council meeting took longer than expected."

Yanagi nodded slightly, noting that it was Tuesday, the day of the Student Council's weekly meeting. He only looked up to observe Sanada's reaction. Would there be a punishment for the Gentleman? Yanagi tried to guess Sanada's response. No, Yagyuu was caught up due to the Student Council meeting, even Sanada was reasonable enough not to fault Yagyuu for it.

"…twenty laps after you're done changing."

Sanada was again a bit slow in replying, Yanagi picked up. Indeed, there was something troubling him. Perhaps stress? Yanagi wrote down in his notebook beside Sanada's name. Also, the punishment was light. Yanagi struck out the comment about Sanada being reasonable. Sanada normally gave a huge punishment or none at all; the former being more likely. He circled the word stress in his notebook and continued observing his teammate.

.~.

Strength. That was all he needed, all he wanted. That was all he thought of as Kirihara swung his racket as hard as he could, hitting the ball with such great impact that it rebounded off the wall with a loud bam.

We'll wait for your return undefeated!

Kirihara threw another tennis ball up in the air and swung his racket as fast as he could. He had to become stronger. Stronger than anyone, so that no one could ever defeat him. For Yukimura, for Rikkaidai. Those were the only words he needed to motivate himself to push himself to greater lengths. Kirihara kept on training.

.~.

When Kirihara didn't show up to practice for a week, Yanagi finally spoke up, "Genichirou, it seems that Akaya have been training by himself for the past few days." He had found it interesting that none of the regulars realized the junior's absence, and had hung back waiting for someone to say so. The slight widening of Sanada's eyes confirmed it. "You hadn't noticed."

Sanada gritted his teeth together. "Renji. How long?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"How long have you known?"

Yanagi flipped through his notebook. He didn't need to, every single bit of data was already recorded in his brain, but he did it anyway, for appearance's sake. "Since the first day Akaya missed practice."

"Renji!" Sanada barked. There was a flare in his eyes. "Why didn't you inform me of this immediately?"

Yanagi squeezed his lips shut. He hadn't thought about it, the only thing in his mind was the data. Observing how long it took before the regulars realized the difference, trying to figure out what was going on in their minds that made them lose sight of all the tiny details they usually spotted at the speed of light. It was simply an experiment.

"Renji, do you know where he is?" Sanada's eyes were stern and fierce, but the anger in his voice was gone. Perhaps he felt that it was his fault for not realising sooner. Yanagi made sure he took note of that.

"The tennis club he frequents. I've heard from a few members that he practiced there everyday. It was also interesting to find out that they all feared to approach him, I wonder what happened – " Yanagi mumbled to himself.

Sanada drowned out the rest of Yanagi's mumbling by ordering Jackal to fetch Kirihara. A glance at Marui, and Sanada also told Jackal to buy a cake from the bakery, commenting that Marui seemed to be sugar-deprived. Yanagi wrote sugar-deprived next to Marui's name in his notebook, as well as lack of focus, and wondered if the two linked. He also waited for a sign of complaint from Jackal, but was surprised to find none.

A large question mark appeared beside Jackal's name in Yanagi's notebook.

.~.

Dark circles started to form around Sanada's eyes. He was also constantly rubbing them, Yanagi noted. He suspects that his friend was feeling the strain of handling the reins while their captain was getting medical attention. While Yanagi was wondering if he should offer to take over for the day, Yagyuu entered the courts and the data master realized that the Gentleman was late.

Strange.

Yanagi checked his digital wristwatch for the date. Did the Student Council have an emergency meeting? No, he would have known. Yagyuu was before the two before Yanagi could come up with another reason, so the data master decided to linger and hear firsthand from the Gentleman instead.

"Sorry for my tardiness, Sanada-kun."

Yanagi's eyes opened just a fraction. No reason stated. Again, strange. Sanada, on the other hand, did not seem to have noticed Yagyuu's lack of explanation—somehow Yanagi doubt that any of the other regulars picked up on their teammates' quirks—and just waved him off; apparently too distracted to bother with the punishments. As Yagyuu turned to head towards the locker room, Niou walked by and gave a friendly yet firm pat to his partner's shoulder. Yanagi caught a whiff of Niou's deodorant; had it always been that strong?

He looked down at the page, realising that he had reached the end of that notebook—he was sure he recently changed his notebook—,scribbled Niou's name and deodorant down on the back cover and closed it. Yanagi supposed he had quite a lot of research slash thinking to do that approaching weekend—that, and some shopping.

.~.

Sanada yawned for the thirtieth time in the span of an hour. He rubbed feverishly at his sore eyes and wished for them to just stop aching. It was getting harder and harder to keep them open; he wasn't lacking on sleep, so he couldn't think of any reason for his peculiar drowsiness.

"…Sanada-kun?"

Dammit. Sanada blinked repeatedly at the blackboard, then glanced at his teacher. The acting-captain of the boys' tennis club fought against the strong urge to just—curl up and sleeeep—and asked, "I'm sorry, I missed the question."

"You might want to wash your face. You look tired." His teacher's face was filled with concern at the lack of attention one of her star pupils was displaying. "Come see me at the end of the period," she informed him just as he stepped out of the classroom to follow her suggestions. Sanada raised his hand to grab the edge of his cap, only to remember that he was indoors and not out on the courts, frowned and placed his hand on his eyes. Damn, he did not have the time for that.

.~.

Marui's lack of focus needs some looking into, perhaps some drills…challenges?—no, seeing Marui's reflexes during the recent practices, he'd be more likely to injure himself. The District Tournaments are approaching really quickly…hold on, when are they coming up? The week after next? He'd better check…where was he? Right, Marui…

Sanada nodded when his teacher paused. He supposed it was the right action because she continued her speech.

Didn't Renji say something about Akaya? What was that boy doing?—right, not attending practices and training off somewhere else. Jackal brought him back that one practice, but what about those after that…was Akaya there? He can't remember. He should go and visit Yukimura at the hospital…maybe after practice today. Shit, he has yet to plan for the training session this afternoon. And wasn't there something that needed to be replaced?

"Sanada-kun? Are you listening to me?"

He mentally shook himself out of his thoughts and crisply replied, "Yes."

His teacher sighed and folded her arms across her chest. "I think you need to take a break, Sanada-kun. I can see signs of stress, I think it's safe to assume that it is coming from handling the tennis club while Yukimura-kun is away."

What? A break? He has no time for that! There's the District Tournament and whatnot. How is he supposed to keep the team in tip-top shape if he took a break?

So he voiced his opinion, except with more formality. Before his teacher could make any other suggestions, he said, "I have to attend the next class, please excuse me."

.~.

Niou have never imagined himself doing this; a cancer stick between his fingers and puffing out breaths of smoke, watching the white swirls float and vanish before his eyes. But then again, he'd never imagined Yukimura to collapse on them, diagnosed with a disease. He felt it was funny how life worked.

Niou knows, he knows, that he shouldn't even be doing this—it's going to screw up his lungs so bad and dammit, he needs them for tennis. Stamina and all that crap. But it's relaxing and ever since he found that out…he can't stop. He's addicted and he knows it. He knows it. Knows the bad effects of his actions but he needs to do this, for he's going crazy and he can't. He just doesn't know how he can go through each day without going through half a pack of these sticks anymore.

So he continues—continues fucking up his lungs and regretting, but unable to stop.

Niou tosses the cigarette down onto the ground and grinds his shoe over it. He digs through his bag and pulls out his deodorant—it's nearly empty and he has to buy a new one. Niou knows that his teammates all has their own problems to worry about and he can't drag them into his stupid addiction and troubles. So he sprays, sprays until he can't smell the scent of nicotine on his body—until his teammates can't. Then he tosses a mint into his mouth and bites down hard on it as he pushes off the side of the building—a security camera blind spot and his current favourite hiding place at school—and heads towards the courts for tennis practice.

.~.

Head over to the tennis club and drag Akaya to tennis practice. Pick up some cake for Bunta on the way back.

A few months back, Jackal knows that he would be mumbling complaints under his breath the whole way, but now, he really just doesn't care anymore. He's tired, doesn't have the energy…and simply…don't care.

What did Sanada ask him to do? Right. Head over to the tennis club and drag Akaya to tennis practice. Pick up some cake for Bunta on the way back.

.~.

Marui jiggles his leg as he sits on the wooden bench, chewing furiously at his gum, which has lost its taste ages ago. They are waiting for their first match of the District Tournament to start and Marui tries to remember whether he was in Singles 2 or Singles 1. Sanada had read out the line-up mere minutes ago, but Marui couldn't seem to listen to the words properly. It happened a lot these past few months without Yukimura around. So Marui twists around and pokes his doubles partner in the guts and asks him about the line-up. Jackal's just staring at him blankly and that was bloody weird, because Jackal's anything but blank…a grumble here and a sigh there but not blank. Jackal swiftly replies and Marui nods.

Singles 2. Okay, that's not bad. He won't need to play this match; Rikkaidai will wipe the floor—courts—with the first three sets anyway. Then it hits him. Darn it, it's their first match so they have to play all five matches. Marui chews harder and nearly bites his tongue in the process. Shit, he'd better stop that or he'll be entering the courts with a bloody tongue. He's not nervous—dammit —but his performance during practice have been less than mediocre lately and he just doesn't know why he can't fucking concentrate. Sanada's been bitching about that and shit, he tries, he tries to focus but the ball just ends up being this fuzzy piece of flying shit. He doesn't know what have gotten into him and how was he meant to fix it if he doesn't know what's causing it.

Singles 2. He just needs to win it. Fuck. A match, a tennis match. He's done it plenty of times. Six games, that's all. Win six games, don't let the opponent get a point. Marui gets up and spits his gum into the rubbish bin. He gives his cheeks a few hard pats—slaps—and squeezes his eyes shut.

Come on Bunta. It's not hard. All you need to do is focus. Focus.

For Yukimura, for Rikkaidai. He chants that in his mind and when he reopens his eyes, they were steady—slightly wavering, but steady nonetheless. For Yukimura, for Rikkaidai…

.~.

Sanada visits him at the hospital every week.

Yukimura sits on the—it's always the because he refuses to think of it as his—hospital bed and looks out of the window. He knows that he's being rude but he can't be all that bothered when he's feeling like…this, whatever this is. The District Tournament was on the previous weekend; he stares at the calendar every morning to keep in touch with society, to tell himself that he's not disconnected just because he's stuck in the hospital like an invalid, it helps to calm him, a little bit.

"Yukimura."

He doesn't divert his eyes from the scene below the window pane. "We won." It was phrased as a statement, because it was obvious, there could be no way that Rikkaidai would have lost in the Districts, not ever.

"…yes."

Yukimura notices the slight pause that Sanada makes before replying, and tries to remember the times when Sanada didn't—times before his collapse, he realizes. He doesn't ask, because he has other things on his mind, things like…death. It was really sad for a fifteen year old to be thinking about death, but it was the truth. "That's good."

The conversation stills. He hears Sanada pace around the room, rustling of wrappers, the tap running, and the clinking of porcelain. Yukimura feels the sun on his face and shuts his eyes; he thinks about the days where he ran under the bright sky, laughing and cheerful.

He doesn't hear Sanada leave the room.

A/N: I have this insane idea of a crossover which I don't know whether I should post or not.