The Master and The Child of God had been so deeply engrossed in their conversation that they failed to notice when The Emperor finally joined them. It seemed, however, that they were quite alone in that discovery; perhaps years of constantly gauging his surroundings had ultimately turned habit into a 100% natural reflex (and there was a convincing 76% in favour of such a useful evolutionary adjustment), but the data specialist made the off-hand observation that with the completion of the Troika, the gawking from the courts had reached a new high.

"Sanada."

Yanagi took a discreet half-step back, offering a silent apology to his soon-to-be chewed out friend for leaving him so exposed to the wrath that was sure (by a 352% chance) to be unleashed upon him within the next short moments; while Sanada, on his part, decided that giving Yukimura his perfectly rational explanation as to why he was only a few minutes late (to an impromptu pre-tryout meeting that Sanada wasn't all that certain he had even agreed to in the first place, though only a fool would ever tell Yukimura that) was going to be a complete waste of breath. Sanada knew that tone and steadied himself for what was to come. One needn't be the all-knowing Yanagi to know that this was one of those rare instances where it was saner – and indefinitely much safer – to just let it go without a fight, and take whatever punishment like a man.

Besides, as if years' worth of dealing with Yukimura wasn't incentive enough to quell all stray thoughts of rebellious nature, The Emperor could discern his father's deep, commanding voice inside his head quite clearly:

Go on. Take it like a man, son. Do not disgrace the family name any further by refusing.

"You're late." Yukimura's velvety smile grew a few more shades more steely, which usually meant that the captain was about to really dish it out. "I would have you run..." he trailed off, expertly waiting for the silence to become sufficiently stale before looking up at his old friend sternly and expectantly.

Unsure of what exactly could have possessed The Child of God to do so, but more than willing to accept it without a second thought, Sanada wisely heeded to the unspoken 'but I won't because today is special, but don't think I'll forget so don't do it again' and replied in a way of acknowledging this unusual act of charity,

"Aa."

Instantly appeased, Yukimura relaxed and waved it off with a warmer smile before asking, "Did you see the others on your way here? Are they behaving?"

The Master had watched the brief exchange, paying special attention to the part where he knew Yukimura's smile would suddenly revert back from indicating 'a speedy demise' to its usual 'sugar and spice and everything nice', with lightly furrowed brows. He had witnessed too many interactions of similarly strange nature in their time together as Rikkai Dai Demons, but even though privileged access – and subsequent prolonged exposure – to both of them meant that this, which was a most peculiar affair, no longer fazed him quite like it used to (because that very first time it happened had been a mystifying and positively horrid experience), Yanagi was still at a loss over what had actually played out between them for Yukimura, who was notoriously stubborn, to change his mind about something so readily.

Even four years (!) after befriending Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou, the data specialist had yet to determine just how Sanada managed to smooth over a transgression, which in Yukimura's rulebook was serious enough to warrant tens of laps around campus (twenty or so on a good day, while on a bad they averaged out in their hundreds) with a single syllable, 'Aa'.

Only one thing was certain: whatever it was that Genichirou did, it was completely illogical.

Yanagi had analyzed the matter thoroughly and researched it half to death, and still he felt not one step closer to the truth. The inclusion of the 'Aa' was obviously important, that much was clear; it was the rest of it that was frustrating and bizarre all at the same time, and giving rise to a number of different possibilities. Was it an apology? Unlikely. Was it an explanation? Doubtful. Was it an excuse? Absurd.

Besides, did it even qualify as a proper sentence? Well, he supposed that it did, technically, at least. But that was a moot point (and probably rather petty, too).

—just what on earth was it?

Did it possess some kind of hidden meaning that he, Yanagi Renji, Rikkai's Master, wasn't aware of? Surely, that was not possible.

Or was it?

It was a messy and dissatisfying situation that defied logic in a most disturbing way, and Yanagi did not like or enjoy it one bit, not even as an intellectual, wholly hypothetical 'what-if' exercise. Thinking about it too much or for too long tended to make his head spin, palms sweat – and worse still, it would cast into doubt the workings and methodology of his own mind, begging into question his very existence. If he no longer was able to accurately differentiate between the reasonable and the nonsensical, right from wrong, order from chaos, who was he then? Certainly not a Yanagi Renji he wanted to be.

Meanwhile, Sanada nodded in response to Yukimura's inquiry about their absent teammates, blissfully unaware that he stood entirely to blame for Yanagi's mild bout of identity crisis.

"Jackal is overseeing registration," The Emperor said, before unleashing upon the other two a hard and exceptionally pointed stare – the one Yukimura had formally, but fondly, dubbed the 'Sanada Look' – and its silent message was lost on neither The Master nor The Child of God. It was Sanada's own special way of saying that Jackal was carrying out his duties 'like he was supposed to', which could only mean that someone else on the team was up to something he shouldn't.

Picking forlornly at the charred remains of his shattered personality, and consoling himself with the fact that at least these were some fairly routine calculations, Yanagi quickly deduced that this 'someone' Sanada was referring to in the quiet was Niou Masaharu with 78%'s likelihood and Marui Bunta by 22%. The data specialist ran through the numbers three times (for accuracy, not luck) just to be certain, but everything followed suit like it was supposed to: the method was sound, all relevant variables had been carefully considered and weighed against each other, everything could be accounted for. It was logical and proper and made perfect, perfect sense.

The Master felt a tad bit better about himself. Now, all Sanada had to do was to confirm that his conclusion was the correct one—

Completely oblivious to the intensity of Yanagi's gaze from behind his fully drawn eyelids, Sanada took a moment to cross his arms protectively over his chest. Then he ground out, "I caught Niou and Marui slacking off. They're running laps around the second gymnasium as we speak. Tarundoru!"

—for Yanagi Renji to feel as good as new, and to discreetly divert his eyes from The Emperor's face before the latter realized that he had been stared at.

Sanada scowled. After exchanging a few words with Yanagi by the club house and changing into his tennis uniform, he had stopped by the registration area, just in case he might be needed for anything, only to confirm that The Trickster indeed was terrorizing their first-year applicants. And since Marui seemed hell-bent on annoying the life out of his doubles partner (who took his job seriously and therefore was deserving of some much-needed protection), Sanada took pity on Jackal and sent the volley specialist off along with Niou.

Assigning laps (and being obeyed, mostly) was one of the few joys to his position on the team, and an important, mitigating factor in his continued participation in the circus cleverly disguised as the best high school tennis club in the country. But even so – mattaku – it was more trouble than it was worth, sometimes.

"But I didn't see Yagyuu," the long-suffering vice-captain announced with renewed disapproval. "Apparently, he had some business with the Student Council after school. Something you should have been informed of already, Yukimura."

And in his head, Sanada was hoping on all that was even remotely holy that Yukimura's response would be affirmative, because then (and only then) would the neat little story behind Yagyuu's unexpected absence, which Jackal said Marui claimed Niou had told him after personally hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, actually be true. Although, why Yagyuu Hiroshi should suddenly confide such things to Niou of all people was more than enough to make anyone suspicious, Sanada was reluctant to even consider the alternative. That for good reason: there was an abundance of difficulty attached to keeping track of Niou and his one-man escapades as it was, and it wouldn't do if the infuriating Trickster of the Courts somehow had managed to corrupt the polite and level-headed Yagyuu into doing his bidding. Kami-sama only knew what serious, irreversible damage he had already inflicted on Akaya – and to a certain extent, Marui.

It was only by some anonymous deity's infinite pity and wisdom that their Gentleman had remained untainted so far (though certainly not from any lack of trying on Niou's part), but after almost four long years of frazzled nerves and on constant mayhem-alert, Sanada knew better than to count his blessings. (They still had two more years of high school to go, and beyond that...? It would have been anyone's guess hadn't Yanagi in all likelihood worked out a number of plausible scenarios for that, too.) Hell, Sanada was hard-pressed to even poke at all the bad karma that seemed to fall into his lap on a near daily basis, which undoubtedly were misdirected divine punishments for the evil deeds committed every so often by that puri–piyo–whatever-ing fool of a regular.

Indeed, The Emperor's long and colourful experience with dealing with Niou had taught him that even when decidedly god-awful could things really get that much worse. He was just waiting for the day that his fickle luck would finally run out, and the aforementioned heavenly guardian finally abandoned him and his plight for good. But until then, he'd be damned if he let Yagyuu slip into Niou's waiting clutches. Tennis matches were one thing, but one Trickster off the courts was more than enough, thank you very much; two of them (heavily aided and abetted by Akaya, no doubt) would only drive Sanada into the wall more quickly than tennis, school work, family expectations, Yukimura, his other extracurricular commitments and a vague worry about the future already were.

No. It didn't matter how he looked at it, Niou was... He was... Mattaku, that boy was trouble.

So. much. trouble.

Yukimura had been watching the dark aura forming around his long-time friend and confidant with poorly hid amusement. It didn't take a genius (or Renji) to guess where Sanada's thoughts were headed, but even though Yukimura was well aware that there under normal circumstances was preciously little love lost between Rikkai's Emperor and its Trickster (Yukimura would have been a very poor captain indeed if he didn't notice these things), it was a given that their teamwork would be flawless should it come down to the tough or downright ugly. Huff and puff and grumble as he may, Sanada knew that he could always rely on Niou to clinch that crucial win if needed be, reassured that it would be done in devastating style. Trick and tease and provoke as he may, Niou respected Sanada's drive and fire, because that same ambition burned just as fiercely within each member of the team. Their pride in themselves and in each other united them, kept them together and apart from everyone else on the circuit, and it was this – and not discipline, dedication or superior training facilities, though these did help – that made Rikkai Dai so great.

Something Yukimura doubted very much, however, was that either tennis player in question knew how deeply rooted his loyalty, not only to Team Rikkai as a whole but to one another, actually was. And so The Child of God kept quiet about it and let them get on with life the best they could without being none the wiser (and he had ensured the Yanagi would do the same, of course). After all, on good days, Sanada and Niou were quality entertainment, and even the elite members of Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Koukou's almighty tennis club needed some entertainment once in a while: strictly all work and no play made for dull and unmotivated tennis players, and dull and unmotivated tennis players tended did not do too well in winning titles, trophies and National recognition.

"Yes, Yagyuu told me," confirmed the captain breezily and with small a shrug of the shoulders. "He'll be here as soon as it's over."

Well, that was sure to put Sanada out of his most immediate misery, at least for now. Honestly, though, there was a person that needed to take better care of himself and do something about that constant frown on his face! Teasing him about it had been fun and games when they were younger, but of late Yukimura had surprised himself with feeling genuine concern about the state of Sanada's forehead; at the rate he was going, it would be wrinklier than an umeboshi before they had even hit twenty.

"Scheduling events last minute like this is bothersome," added Yanagi, in a tone that could easily have been mistaken for mildly apologetic. "But at least it is only a short meeting."

Yukimura raised an eyebrow. "Those were Yagyuu's exact words at lunch, which we ate in the classroom, just the two of us."

"I thought that you might have. When neither of you were at the usual place, it was too much of a coincidence to think that you should both have chosen today to eat somewhere else separately. But regarding your obvious suspicions about having been watched..." The data specialist paused triumphantly. "Genichirou was with me the entire time and can vouch for my innocence."

"I never said you did." Yukimura's eyes were sparkling. However pointless, it was a welcome distraction, waiting around like this was making him jittery and even The Child of God could do with a master class once in a while. Yanagi was just so very good at what he did best. "But then, if I may ask, how could you give a verbatim recital of a private conversation unless—?"

"Unless I was there to personally hear it, was what you wanted to say, am I right? Well, it is actually quite simple," replied The Master pleasantly, proudly and confidently. "I know you. I know Yagyuu. And data never lies."

The Emperor was listening to the friendly banter with only a quarter of an ear, instead focusing on discreetly exhaling the breath he didn't know he had been holding in the first place. To say that he was relieved, not only for Yagyuu's sake but also for his own, was an understatement; Sanada had already assigned Niou tens of laps for being annoying and disruptive, so what else could he do to punish the punk had it turned out that he supplied the others with dud information? (It wouldn't be the first time that happened, and hardly the last.) But creative punishments had never been Sanada's forte, which he usually didn't mind since those were Yukimura's department anyway, though The Child of God tended to be inexplicably tolerant when it came to Rikkai's resident swindler and his assorted arsenal of devilry. (Sanada had initially suspected much foul play, and possibly blackmail from Niou's side, until he remembered that the only form of victimization that Yukimura was ever likely to agree to, involved other people. In other words, their fearless leader was an Untouchable, an impossible target even for Niou, and it was a rare instance where The Emperor and The Trickster of the Courts were in perfect agreement: sometimes, it was better for everyone to just let sleeping captains lie, because Yukimura Seiichi could be a very scary boy when he put his mind to it.)

Anyway, regardless of what Niou did and what Yukimura didn't do to prevent him from doing it again, Sanada supposed that there was little that he – a mere, lowly vice-captain, whose only wish was for the members of his team to calmly and collectedly go about their day-to-day business of pulverising all forms of resistance as they battled their way to the highest pinnacle of achievement and stayed there – could really do about it. Even though the mere notion was in direct conflict with his nature and upbringing, Sanada had learned rather quickly not to dwell on such trivial matters as 'honour', 'shame' and 'ethics' when it came to the tennis club's internal politics; this, if only to keep safe his own dignity. It had been a lesson about 'horizons' (Yukimura's damn word, not his) and tolerance fraught with perils and embarrassment (the latter courtesy of Niou, who else?), but once Sanada encountered something worth learning, it had a tendency to stick.

And so The Emperor decided to abandon all further thoughts about his problematic teammates and to deal with them, and whatever disorder and mayhem they would inevitably bring along with them, one at the time as they crossed his path; which they would, oh yes, sooner rather than later. Why? Because they always did, was why.

Mattaku, that bunch managed to get into trouble no matter where they went, didn't they?

"So this is it?" he barked, a bit too loudly, gesturing impatiently towards the tennis courts where the congregation was suddenly doing its outmost to avoid eye-contact with him. "That's all?"

"So far, you mean?" Yanagi finished for him, calmly as ever. The data specialist was 72% certain that there was more to that statement than what met his membrane tympani, but he was reluctant to press the matter; outside of tennis, Sanada tended to react rather badly to pressure.

But his patience (and perceptiveness) was rewarded almost immediately when Sanada muttered, "He's late."

"But I'm sure he'll be here very soon." Yukimura's voice was silky with danger, openly daring the vice-captain to disagree. "Isn't that right, Renji?"

Yanagi had on his part been perfectly content with his role as an innocent bystander, but if Yukimura thought it necessary to drag him into whatever was going on between him and Sanada, Yanagi would go along with it quite willingly. He might gain some new, interesting data from the experience, and he was curious.

"By all means," replied the data specialist nonchalantly. "I believe so, yes."

Sanada, however, looked dubious at best and cast a not-so subtle glance at his wristwatch. "But—"

"Sanada." The Child of God raised his voice by a mere fraction, breaking neither his smile nor eye-contact with The Emperor as he kindly drove home the point that deity was forever, whereas even the bluest-blooded resident royalty was not. "I wouldn't argue with Renji, if I were you."

If Sanada's posture had been stiff before, it was positively rigid now. But this was a commonly documented side effect of being subjected to Yukimura's infamous Smile-Eye-Tone combo (along with cold sweats, elevated blood pressure, nightmares and headaches), which incidentally had given rise to the 'Game, SET, Match' chant the year before. But The Master found that the demonstration left him unusually cold and unimpressed. Seiichi was certainly flexing his muscles; that much was almost painfully obvious, but the whole thing had been uncharacteristically blunt and lacking in its usual touch of lethal finesse. Of course, that was not to say that the effort wasn't rather excessive to begin with; and, all things considered, any intervention on the behalf of the intimidated vice-captain was not only justified but fair. But then again, Genichirou had without a doubt brought it upon himself this time, and Yanagi wasn't above waiting a few more seconds just to watch him sweat. It was a rare opportunity to gather intelligence on The Emperor in a stressful situation (which could quite possibly result in some very useful data for later), but there was also The Law to consider, and it was harsh with the price of self-inflicted stupidity high. As it should be, though; borrowing one of Sanada's favourite expressions, they would never get anywhere from slacking off.

"Data doesn't lie, Genichirou," the data specialist reprimanded lightly once he deemed that Sanada had had enough. Then he nodded in the direction of the tennis courts. "Over there are some former regulars from the middle school section. National level."

"Is that so?" Yukimura's default smile indicated that professional tennis players or not, he held only a lukewarm interest in the proceedings thus far, but would humour Yanagi regardless. "Anyone we should be particularly interested in, then?"

"As far as I am aware, which is by no means inconsiderable, I might add..." Yanagi paused, making a point of ignoring Sanada's obvious rolling of his eyes in favour of emphasizing that his knowledge indeed stretched both far and wide and came rather handy in situations like these. After the data fiasco earlier, he had everything to prove and was determined to do it. "There is just the one. His name is Kobayashi Daichi."

"Kobayashi Daichi?" repeated Yukimura, regarding the data specialist curiously.

This was certainly unexpected, but if Yanagi Renji thought highly enough of the boy's abilities to mention his name specially, then this Kobayashi-kun was someone out of the ordinary and noteworthy in one way or another. After all, wasn't it any self-respecting captain's most sacred duty to take pity upon untried and untested talent, to take it under his figurative wing, to nurture and guide it, and to refine it into something both unique and spectacular (before finally unleashing it to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting competition)? But even though The Child of God was renowned for the triumphs of his own side-project from junior high, he couldn't help the small, unwanted twinge of envy whenever he stopped to think about his former counterpart at Seigaku. There was absolutely no denying it, and the verdict among tennis players nationwide was unanimous: Tezuka Kunimitsu was a lucky, lucky bastard and had seriously hit the jackpot with Echizen Ryoma—

"Seiichi?"

Yanagi sounded impatient, and Yukimura quickly dispelled all thoughts about people who nowadays only featured in occasional, spontaneous get-togethers, to concentrate more fully on the prospect of a new, exciting protégé.

"I've never heard of him, so he can't be one of ours." Yukimura turned to his vice-captain. "What do you think, Sanada?"

The Emperor frowned. It was still too early for anything to be completely certain, but one thing was already blindingly obvious: the last time Yukimura had showed active, personal interest in someone younger than them, Sanada had been forced to deal with that younger someone's bad attitude and annoying quirks for nearly two whole years. One difficult, unruly kouhai was bad enough as far as Sanada was concerned, and he wasn't overly enthusiastic about the idea of adding to that tally so soon. But that didn't mean that Yanagi didn't have him curious about this Kobayashi boy: real talent (no matter how snarky, disruptive and disobedient) was hard to come by even at the distinguished Rikkai Dai-schools and much too precious to be overlooked due to personal prejudices (no matter how often these had been proven right in the past).

"I don't know that name either," he declared before turning to the data specialist expectantly. "Well? Who is he?"

The Master smiled. It was only a small, very quiet smile (mostly because Yanagi had never believed in unnecessarily gestures, and as such the freshmen on the other side of the fence were and would forever remain none the wiser), but it was a smile nonetheless. At this precise moment, his friends were like a pair of open books, complete with attention-grabbing titles and detailed summaries on the back, and it only went to prove that even they were not completely immune to the relentless powers of Data Tennis. Sometimes (and Yanagi was secretly grateful for those precious moments), things were just too easy.

He cleared his throat, already anticipating their reactions. "Kobayashi Daichi, also known among the schools as the 'Captain Slayer', age fiftee—"

"Captain Slayer, Renji?"

Hm. Yanagi supposed that coming from Yukimura, it was a remark that could almost pass for an exclamation of disbelief. The data specialist made a mental note to investigate this more thoroughly at another time.

"Renji," Sanada urged, unwittingly slipping into informal speech, now all but convinced that he would soon come into the unhappy possession of a new, snarky kouhai. "What exactly do you mean by 'Captain Slayer'?"

"I'll get to that in a minute," replied The Master patiently, cool as a cucumber and not minding the added attention one bit. The almost desperate manner in which his normally aloof colleagues were hanging onto his every word was strangely gratifying. "As I was about to say, Kobayashi Daichi, age fifteen, blood type B, lefthander, received most of his schooling abroad and attended Rikkai Dai only in his third year of junior high, when we had already graduated. His reasons for suddenly relocating to Kanagawa-ken are known, but irrelevant to our purposes. What is interesting, however, is..."

Sanada sighed. Clearly, Yanagi was having a ball as storyteller (and good for him), but Sanada wished that he would just get to the point already and tell them about the boy's tennis.

The Emperor was made to immediately regret that thought, however, when he suddenly found himself staring straight into Yanagi Renji's wide open eyes. "Genichirou, please pay better attention and I assure you that the point won't pass you by," the latter chided, though not very sternly or seriously. "This is important."

Sanada deployed his sternest glare in response, but remained otherwise stationary, which could only mean one of two things. Yanagi cast a quick look in Yukimura's direction, duly deciding against pursuing this sidetrack any further. After all, one did not cross The Child of God if one could help it, and Seiichi made a valid point: there was always a later for teasing Sanada.

And so The Master smoothly picked up from where he had left off:

"Widely considered Rikkai's dark horse even well into the tournament season, Kobayashi was given vice-captain status shortly before the start of the Kantou Tournament where he defeated Hyoutei's buchou Hiyoshi Wakashi 6-4, 7-5 in the final."

"That explains the nickname," commented the vice-captain dryly, apparently letting bygones be bygones. "Still, earning that kind of reputation by defeating just one... That's tarundoru!"

Yanagi shook his head. "Genichirou, you're jumping to conclusions again. Kobayashi then overcame Tezuka's successor at Seigaku, Kaidou Kaoru, 7-5, 5-7, 7-6 (25-23), 7-6 (18-16) at the Nationals, in a battle of stamina that lasted nearly four hours. It's a new record on junior level, I believe." The data specialist paused before adding, "Of course, there were other scalps as well: first was Hanomiya's captain at the District Preliminaries, followed by Ginka's, Aihara's, Okakura's, Kuroshio's and Shishigaku's as the season progressed."

That last part especially had been quite a mouthful. But as expected, Yukimura was the first to recover enough to speak.

"...did you hear that, Sanada?" smiled The Child of God, already halfway into envisioning unveiling an 'Akaya 2.0' at a suitable tournament, with a keen glint in his eyes. "You seem to know a lot about this boy, Renji."

"I possess a sufficient amount of personal data on him, if that is what you mean," replied The Master, wilting slightly under the intensity of Yukimura's razor-sharp gaze. Perhaps he ought to have held back a little in his evaluation considering, "...which is why by my calculations, Kobayashi is not yet ready to be a regular on this team. He will be, eventually. In fact, at any other school, there is a 73% chance that even his present level would guarantee him a place. But not here. Not yet. I recommend that we place him among the sub-regulars for now, on an advanced training schedule that allows us to track his improvements more closely." The data specialist turned to The Child of God apologetically. "And I'm afraid that it's still too early to consider putting together a personal training menu for him; later on in the season, perhaps, but not before."

"I see." Yukimura frowned. How very disappointing. But it couldn't be helped, and super talent was a rare thing after all. "What about the others? Renji, there really is nobody else?"

The Master thought for a moment. "I suppose that I could mention Yamada Hideki, Kimura Ren and Matsumoto Shouta," he said. "However, I don't think I need to go into details with those three. I expect that you still remember them, Seiichi. They've improved since we last saw them, even earning national recognition for last season, but... well."

Yanagi had tactfully refrained from finishing his sentence, though Sanada wondered why he had bothered with such a pointless nicety when the ensuing silence said it all (and more).

The captain, on his part, was pleased with the familiarity of those names. It had certainly been a while, but of course he remembered: they had been at the upper end of the sub-regular squad abilities-wise, and at a lesser school they might not have had to wait for as long as their third year of middle school to make the cut as team regulars. Rikkai Dai, however, was not some run of the mill, no-name school but home of the Rikkai Kings, the absolute tennis elite; and as such, the competition even between friends was so unforgiving that sometimes even talent and hard work were enough.

(Granted, of course, that these sub-regulars had been particularly unfortunate in being so completely overshadowed by their batchmate and his unprecedented capacity for the sport, which had taken the entire junior tennis circuit by storm.)

But hadn't they been four back then? Yamada, Kimura and Matsumoto... There had been an Aiba-kun among them as well, Yukimura was sure of it, but he hadn't been mentioned along with the others. Well. Yanagi probably had his reasons. He always did.

"Competent doubles players, that Kimura-kun especially," Yukimura mused out loud. "He was still only a first-year when he nearly replaced Bunta in the official line-up. It was after those horrible ranking matches, I think. Do you remember that, Sanada?"

The vice-captain snorted. "How could I forget?"

...because how anyone unlucky enough to have been caught up in the furious whirlwind that had been Marui Bunta ever could, was utterly beyond him: the volley specialist had taken Yukimura's sudden announcement of an autumn, pre-season ranking tournament as a personal insult (and he had probably been right, too, knowing Yukimura and the fact that Marui, with a recent loss to freshman Kimura to his name, was the most likely to lose his yet unofficial place on the regulars) and had taken it upon himself to wreak absolute havoc in the clubhouse in retaliation – before Sanada finally snapped and ordered the troublemaker on an unholy number of laps around the school in a vain attempt to limit the damage.

"What happened then was necessary."

The cold, dismissive tone, coupled with the hard look in his eyes, sent a small shudder down the Emperor's spine, as he was reminded yet again of the tremendous fighting spirit hidden away somewhere inside their delicate-looking friend. Sanada had once made the monumental mistake of underestimating that strength, which resulted in Yukimura pounding him into the ground and claiming a 6-1 victory after only fifteen minutes of play, but he had learned from his mistake and never done it again.

"It forced Bunta to adapt," continued The Child of God, defiantly. "And he became a much stronger because of it."

"You would have dropped him from the team otherwise," Yanagi remarked. This was Rikkai Dai, so it wasn't a question that required confirmation (even though it very well could have been), but a simple observation.

"Yes." Yukimura's reply was immediate and without hesitation, though his lips had relaxed into a small smile when he added, "But I'm glad that I didn't have to. The team wouldn't have been the same without him."

Sanada nodded. Out of everyone's, Marui's rise to the tennis player he was today had to be the most tangible and noticeable by far. Initially one of the weaker individuals on the team, hampered not so much by the abilities of his rivals as by his own poor stamina, Marui had stepped up to the plate and proven his worth in doubles; to a point where a Jackal without a Marui (and vice versa) had become something unthinkable and foreign even to The Emperor. And as a second-year, Yukimura had already known, somehow, that there was more to the confident volley specialist than his penchant for sweets and flashy tennis moves, and he had pushed hard to draw that potential out in the open, in that pleasant but unforgiving, steel-sheathed-in-velvet way of his.

Gentle but ruthless was Yukimura Seiichi through and through, though one would hardly know it from just looking at him.

When a young Sanada first laid eyes on the bright, bubbly boy with a headband, he had taken an instinctive dislike to what he saw, instantly discarding the stranger as just another soft, spoilt-rotten brat (and on a similar note, after seeing Seigaku's Fuji Syusuke in action, The Emperor could only imagine what might have been running through Tezuka's mind at their first meeting, and how quickly he probably had been forced to change his mind). And while Sanada hadn't gone out of his way to avoid the other boy, he had refrained from initiating any first contact, or conversation (not that Sanada had ever been one for polite small-talk anyway, especially not with prospective opponents), and he hadn't been initiated into one either. In fact, he doubted that they even would have made each other's acquaintances under normal circumstances. But this had been at a junior tournament arranged by the tennis club they both happened to attend, and a prestigious competition at that.

Tennis indeed, but it hadn't always occupied such an obviously central part of his life. It had been virtually unknown to him when growing up, and some sixteen years later, he was still the only person in his immediate family to play or even own a tennis racquet. But that was not to say that his childhood was deprived of the mental clarity and focus derived from regular exercise. As dictated by ancient family decree, Sanada Genichirou had been taught the principles of the katana from a very early age and had, as was expected of any son born to the Sanada name, excelled at kendo. But even though he had the potential to become quite skilled, he had realized with some regret – and considerable envy – that he was unlikely to ever measure up to (and defeat) his older brother, who would always claim some deciding advantage: be it height, strength or experience. And so, at the ripe age of seven years old, Sanada decided to take up a secondary sport and had somehow ended up with a tennis racquet in his hand. He wasn't entirely sure of how that had come about exactly, only vaguely remembering asking his parents' permission to join a neighbourhood youth football club (and obtaining it; Sanada had been a very obedient child), but getting slightly lost on the way there.

In any case, once he had tried it and decided that he liked it, he had approached tennis with the same dogged determination and unparalleled competitiveness as he did everything else; until, eventually, he surpassed even his privately acquired coach's high expectations by triumphing at every junior tournament he entered. But winning against anyone and everyone he came up against lulled him into a false sense of superiority, and so the fall had been so much greater when 'it' finally happened: when Yukimura Seiichi happened, appearing without as much as a word of warning and from absolutely nowhere, in a chance encounter that came to change everything. Suddenly, Sanada was no longer undefeated. He had met someone better than him, stronger than him; someone so small and delicate – and effeminate, too, with all that deceiving softness and hair, which had been longish even then – had crushed him with such ridiculous ease that he had shed angry tears (when he thought nobody was looking) at the mere thought of it for days after the match itself. Still, without a Yukimura to defeat and ultimately befriend, he would never have found the motivation to push himself even harder and further, and to overcome the initial limitations to his own abilities.

In hindsight, Sanada was convinced that no-one, not even Tezuka, who would appear out of the blue only much, much later, could have achieved what the nine-year-old Yukimura did; that first match unlocked something important, and for that Sanada Genichirou would be forever truly grateful.