It was the beginning of fall when the Tennis Club took their training camp to the mountains. Normally it would have been in the summer, but the season change meant we could have the normally busy boarding house all to ourselves.

"YAHOO!" shouted Terrada!

"Wow, look at all this green!" I said as I looked out of my window.

Jun-sensei said in response, "Take a good look at that greenery and breath in that air!"

For me this was my first time out of the city for such a long time. I had been sick with renal insufficiency since the fourth grade, but even after my final surgery I had mostly stuck around my home or school. Would have been a Go-To-Home club member for all my school life if I hadn't joined the tennis club this year.

It might have been unfair for a 19 year old to join the Tennis Team, but I'm sure a person who had only started being physically active five years ago is enough of a handicap to count. I would have joined the swimming club, but past experiences are enough of a deterrent for that.

I knew most of the people going on the trip, but there were two that I was really close to. Hiroko Yashiro was the most friendly of the girls. She was the one with the ponytail. Then there was Amika Nakamura. Short hair and glasses, she was the one who convinced me to join. While I had kept in touch with my friends, this year they had already graduated, so it was nice to have a friend in this year. The rest of my friends weren't in the club so Nakamura was a comfort.

"That wind is really refreshing," said Hana Tachimizu as she rolled her window down and let the breeze shake her twin buns of hair.

"The boarding house is on a plateau, right, Sensei?" asked Nakamura.

"Since the rental villa is high in the mountains, it's a long way down, but we can run it."

"Well it'll be easier since it's downhill', noted Masamoto.

Terrada scoffed at the idea, "Making us climb mountains, after we're tired from practice such a hard driver!"

Yashiro rebuked him, "Every day will be hard, after all it is a training camp!"

"Looks like Shin knows what he's doing," remarked Miyazaki as she finished her bottle of water, "After all he's resting before he has to do all the heavy lifting."

Shin was fast asleep on the car window. Rainmura on the other hand was looking over the schedule for the practice. He was stuck with kitchen duty and he was responsible for the vegetables.

"Aren't you cold Anzai?" Asakura asked as she tried to hold one of the luggages from falling onto of her.

For a van meant to carry fourteen people it was still very crowded. They drew straws for who had got shotgun, and of course Narusegawa got shotgun while Asakura got the seat next to the bags in the last row. The boys sat together on the first two rows on the right hand side of the vehicle with Tachimizu and Nakamura filling the last occupied row. The left side was Yashiro and Miyazaki in front of Sensei and me. That arrangement proved to be a problem.

"Actually I feel pretty warm." I responded.

"Do you have a fever?" asked a concerned Sensei.

I never had motion sickness, but I have never had altitude sickness either. For the couple of hours I had been sitting with her I felt an uncomfortable heat emanating from my body. But it was not the flu. It was something much more uncomfortable.

Five years ago I had a kidney transplant, one that for a couple of months resulted in nightly fevers and such. After a few months it resided with only a few flares four years ago and a year ago. As a result though I had to repeat a year much to everyone's chagrin including mine. But I've recovered from that. Though there seemed to be no explanation from the doctors, it wasn't a rejection at the least. The kidney was mine now. This time the explanation seemed much more obvious.

My sensei, Jun Fudo, seemed to be the source of my recent problems. She's my homeroom teacher this year, and it had been merely a lukewarm feeling. It was during the tennis club that the reaction intensified. Even then it was tolerable. Now though it felt like I had to drink a lot of the water and let the mountain breeze cool me down if I wanted to survive this trip.


It was the end of the day and us girls sat around the campfire. Despite the evening temperature, I was still feeling as if I sunbathed without suntan lotion all day. I steeled myself though. If I had gotten sick on my first outing, who knows how my dad would have reacted! Though at this rate I wouldn't have made it for the full week.

Yet in the back of my mind I feel something else.

"You need some water?" Miyazaki asked as she pointed her bottle of water towards me. We probably will run out of bottled waters before the end of the trip at this rate.

"No thanks," I rejected, wiping my brow of a little sweat.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Nakamura asked with concern. "You've been looking pretty ill this trip,"

I waved it off, "I think its just altitude sickness, and I'll recover with a night's rest. But this is the first time I've been out in the mountains."

"I get what you mean," Narusegawa stated, "It's been really fun so far."

Sensei came down from the house. The heat returned with it.

"Jun sensei, did you invite the guys?" asked Asakura. Now that she mentioned to it, none of the guys were here.

"Jeez, were they all asleep?" said Miyazaki.

"After all that trouble…" followed Yashiro.

"I don't think they slept at all yesterday," Sensei answered, "Seems like they fell asleep right away."

"Like children huh?" responded Tachimizu.

"Like the saying "Brats will be brats", they'll never grow up."

Nakamura laughed with that, "Exactly!"

"That's the guys in our club for you.' Said Tachimizu.

Pretty sure I laughed too. But my memory began to get a little foggy. I had been going in and out of consciousness as the rest of my teammates asked about why Sensei stopped being a swimmer.

"You did become an Olympic gold medalist in junior high after all," remarked Yashiro.

Aoyama had talked all about her ever since she won in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. After all she was a swimmer and even I could see that she was beautiful. Athletic and curvy were his preferences and Jun Sensei could definitely fit the bill even in her youth.

But really the thing Aoyama as well as everyone else was very upset when she didn't compete in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. It was some other swimmer. Aoi was it? She didn't win the gold medal that year, but she won it last year.

"I was becoming to accustomed to swimming. It began to become very unpleasant somehow. So then I went to university to become a schoolteacher." She looked into the campfire. "I didn't feel like a regular person. I didn't want to be seen as an Olympic athlete anymore. I was content with watching the games in Sydney last year on tv."

"What a waste," Asakura complained.

"Totally," said Miyazaki in agreement.

"I wanted to see the unmovable Jun race again!" commented Narusegawa.

"Yep," I responded trying to stay with the conversation.

"But, I'm glad that you became the Tennis Club's advisor," complimented Yashiro, "You play like a pro and your face seems to glow. It's so great!"

Sensei chuckled slightly as we gazed into the flickering fire. Everyone had a smile of contentedness. Despite my temperature, I still had a grin on, remembering back to those innocent times. And here I was hanging out with my friends on an excursion I would not have though possible five or six years ago. I should have appreciated this peaceful moment because after this, my ignorant bliss would be loss once more.


Author's Note:

Looks like I'm approaching the M rating pretty soon with this. Either that or we're going to go Fate: Stay/Night Dragon territory.

Those playing the timeline game would know which years I was talking about when Mariko reacted again and probably why in those cases it happened.

Either way Devilman Volume 1 will be done within the next couple of chapters.