AN: Hey I'm sorry that i' ve gotten so behind in this story. I'm not as behind as some (smiles at someone) Any way i hope you enjoy this and I look forward to getting reviews or comments on it. And yes we all know that my spelling really sucks. Oh yeah and Suzuna knows about sena (no duh)

Lunch Practice 1

Sena had thanked Sinko and apologized for having to leave early and ask him such a stupid question before taking off for practice. Sena couldn't help but smile to himself as he remembered what Sinko had told him.

'"Hey what are friends for?"' he reached his locker and began to open it with his combination. 'Sinko's such a good friend. Not asking any questions or wondering why i'd suddenly ask such a weired question! I'll havetohang out with him more often!'

Sena got his locker door open just as a group of the guys came in passing him by to get to their own lockers. As they did Sena felt someone grope him on the behinde. (It was normal for the guys to slap each other on the ass but usually they all kept from groping each other unless it was an all out joke that every one was paying attention to.) This made Sena turn a bright shade of red. He waited a minute calming himself down by listening to the other guys talk. He heard Hiruma'svoice as he argued with the HUH brothers and he slowly breathed out and began to change, quickly, knowing who had been his groper.

Once he was changed he headed out to the field ahead of every one else and began to stretch. Slowly the other guys began to stream out. As they did Suzuna, Taki's younger sister, came up to Sena smiling.

"Hey Sena!"

"Oh. Hey Suzuna whats up?"

"Cheerleader practice!" She said gleefully waving her pom poms so he could see.

"Oh right." Sena hadn't been thinking of the cheerleader, though Suzuna had been a real help to him after the game the other day. When his legs had given out on him momentarily Suzunahad held him-up and held steady even with her Rollerblades on waiting for him to recover. "Oh and thanks for yesterday!" Sena said rubbing the back of his helmet a little embarrassed. "I hadn't meant to uh,yeah umm, pass out on top of you yesterday."

Suzuna smiled.

"No prob's Sena. What are good friends for?" she said setting one of her po-pomed hands on his shoulder padded shoulder.

They shared a moment smiling at each other before Hiruma's gun could be heard going off in the distance.

"Oh well, you better get going! You-nii's calling!"

"Oh," Sena said felling an uneasy feeling in his stomach. "right. later Suzuna!"

"Later Sena!"

Sena bounded off towards (AN: I officially don't like this word!!) the guys in the huddle as Setzuna bounded off to get her girls ready.

"All right," Hiruma began gun over shoulder helmet in his other hand. "I want you all to warm up and then run miles until i say stop."

The whole team moaned.

"I thought running wasn't until tonight when it was cooler out!" Monta stated. Receiving an icy stare from Hiruma and shutting up immediately, hiding behind Sena who found himself now taking the glare.

He laughed nervously as Hiruma's eyes didn't move from his own.

"Any more remarks about training?" Hiruma yelled at them not taking his eyes off of Sena's still.

The rest of the team wondered why the heck he was staring at Eyeshield21 when it was Monta who'd made the remark not the teams stare runner. What they hadn't noticed was that it wasn't a glare it was just mearly a stare.

Hiruma finally pulled his eyes away putting on his helmet as he yelled.

"Then lets get to it girlie's!"

End of 8th period

Sena stretched out his arms as he got up grabbing his school bag.

"Uhhh!" He heard Monta moan as he got up and stood beside Sena's desk stretching his arms out. "Now we have more practice!"

"Yeah." Sena said with a small smile "More practice!'

"Ah, whats with Hiruma today anyway?" Monta complained slouching his bag over his shoulder as the two of them headed to their lockers. "I mean he doesn't usually change practice schedulesaround on us with out at least a little notice. Such as in the locker rooms!"

"Your right." Sena said realizing this for the first time as he opened up his locker. "I wonder what caused him to do such a thing?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Monta suggested as he leaned against his own not bothering to open it (it's not like he was planing to do his home work that night or any thing.)

"What?!" Sena yelled clenching the side of his locker. "Why me?!"

"Well you and him seem to get a long better and well yeah i just think you should be the one to talk to him."

"Why not Kurita? Or Musashi? I mean me? Those two have known him since Jr. high!"

"Yeah well he doesn't look at them like he looks at you."

"huh? What do you mean Monta?" Sena asked as he began to get his books out of his locker.

"Well you know how he was glaring at me earlier? When i got behind you and the two of you made eye contact his eyes seemed to lighten with...i don't know some type of sparkle in them. I can't describe it."

Leave it to Monta not to recognize what was behind those eyes.

"And when you were talking to Suzuna he well..."

"What?" Sena asked closing his locker and paying complete attention to his friend now.

"Nothing. But what do you think was up with him?"

"Monta," Sena said not being able to forget what he'd starter to say like he usually did.

"I mean come on. He made us run atleast twenty miles withall that gear on! And push-ups with gear on, AND the same pass running play for twenty minutes or so! That's so in-human!!"

"Monta!!"

Monta couldn't help but shut-up at the sudden sternness in Sena's voice. "what about Hiruma and me talking with Suzuna."

Monta actually trying to drop it instead of pursuing it yet again said something else. This time succeeding in re-directing Sena's attention.

"So what were you talking to Sinko about earlier?"

Practice 5:30

After barley managing to get around Monta'squestion in the hall way, without lying(or telling the complete truth), Sena had completely forgotten about what he had been trying to get Monta to tell him.

He and Monta had headed over to the locker rooms of the Devil bats for the second time that day to dress out for evening practice. Monta had been completely satisfiedwith the answer that Sinko and Sena were just eating lunch together and going over some English stuff as friends.

When the two of them finally hit the field it was about six o'clock, practice time, and the lights on the field were beginning to turn on.

The two of them started too stretch with the other guy's when Hiruma came out and demanded a huddle.

"Okay you wimps. Tonight were going to do more running, more push-ups and go in to the weight room and start lifting."

The whole team moaned at more pain stacking chores with their gear. But they were all pleased that they'd get to take it off for some lifting.

"Stop your whimpering!" Hiruma growled at them. "After practice i also have something i need to tell you all so you better still be in the weight room at nine o'clock. Got it?"

The whole team nodded. Hiruma seemed to have calmed down a lot from this after noon and to be acting like himself again. (This made Sena almost forget completely about the groping and question he would have to be answering on Sunday, almost.)

The team set off on their runs. Begging to sweat and pant after the first few miles. After running ten miles with gear on a lot of them began to fall down sick, a repeat of this afternoon. Hiruma would end up going over to them screaming at how weak they were and shooting his gun off in the air as he jogged in place cursing them out until they got up, which when he came over was almost immediate (they had learned early in the season to get up before he's beside you. Other wise you may get some good kicks to your sides and be sore for a long while.) (AN: I think Hiruma should have made Musashi kick them! That should hurt! :D)

Once they had finished thirteen miles, which took all of them approximately an hour and forty-five minutes (a new record), Hiruma called them over, himself sweating from the run, to do push-ups. Everyone didn't dare say a word at him cutting the run down a bit, they were afraid to say something they may have had to start running again if they did.

They all began their sets of push-ups and up downs. Doburosa sensei, the 'coach' figure, blew the whistle and kept them at it for about ten fifteen minutes or so. When they were finally done with that Hiruma yelled at them to go get changed.

Sena changed quickly and was the first in the weight room ready to go. Hiruma was always the first to be dressed and ready to go but he always got on the other guys. Shooting his gun off and yelling at them.

The guys were taking so long that, even though Sena knew you should never lift weights with out a spotter, he couldn't help himself. He was really wanting to lift, usually he'd space out in thoughts about their past games or future games, or on homework or on something else but right now he really wanted to lift.

Knowing he shouldn't, but not being able to resist, he got under the bench press, he didn't know who's or how much it weighed (AN:which is the WORST thing you could ever do with out a spotter around). He got the pushed up on the bar. It seemed to be alright for him, he got it up and over the handles holding the bar above him and brought it down to his chest, more like it pushed his arms down to his chest. He tried to lift it back up but found it was stuck. He couldn't move his arms and they were tired from all the up-downs and push-ups.

'Crap!!' Sena tried and tried to push the bar up to no success. 'Help!!' he cried mentally not being able to actually speak from the strain of trying to keep the bar up from crushing himself. He looked tourds the locker rooms and tried to call for help.

"H-he..." he ended up screaming mentally trying to send mental waves through the locker room as his arms began to shake un-uncontrollably and continue to allow the bar to fall tourds his chest. 'HELP!! Please, any one!' He could feel his eyes dampening from the pain of the strain on his arms.

He was thinking if only he could raise the bar high enough he could move outfrom under neath it but was finding it impossible to do so. So he was left to screaming silent mental please of help tourds the locker rooms.

Suddenly, to Sena's surprise, and joy, Hiruma came out.

Hiruma looked around as if he had heard something from this room. When he saw Sena under the bar straining almost in tears his eyes dropped a little in surprise as he instantly ran to him. Setting his gunagainst the bar propping the whole thing up, and put both his hands on the bar, not bothering to get behind him. He helped Sena to push the bar up, but literally Hiruma had lifted the whole thing himself.

When the bar was secure once again on its metal holder Sena sat up embarrassed at what had happened. He wiped at his watering eyes his arms still shaking from the strain. He was still weak, and feeling stupid for not waiting.

"Th-thanks Hiruma." Sena said shakily.

The room fell in to silence for a moment.

"Baka." Hiruma suddenly growled at him swinging his arms out. "What the hell do you think you were doing?'

Sena didn't wanna look up at him. He could already feel Hiruma's glare on his face.

"I-I don't know." came Sena's honest reply. "I guess i wasn't really thinking."

"You think, you weren't thinking?" Hirumasaid not yelling but his voice showed he wasn't happy with that type of answer.

"I'm sorry." Sena muttered, knowing how mad Hiruma was at him.

The other guys began to filter in and saw Hiruma standing beside the bench press and Sena sitting on the black pad where he had been laying seconds before, sweaty and arms gripping his shoulders trying to control the shaking in his arms. His eyes still watery but cleaned of tears.

"I expected better of you." Hiruma said in a low growl before he turned to the other guys, his back now to the injured and guilt filled Sena. He was blocking off the small figure of Sena completely from the other guys know and turned barking out orders to them. At first angry but soon not reflecting that anything had just happened.

"Alright get a firkin spotter, your partner should be able to lift about the same amount as you and get lifting. Musasshi you go work on your legs on the automatic machines while i work with Sena today. Got it you firkin numb skulls?" Hiruma said picking his gun back up and pointing it at them all.

"Yeah we got it!"A few of them said raising their hands defensevely while a few others just walked off to get started picking partners as they went. Everyone began lifting except for Sena.

Hiruma turned to Sena setting his gun down against the wall.

"Alright pipsqueak no more shitty stunts like that and well be fine. Got it?" Hirumasaid looking at him with a slight growl in his voice.

"Y-yes sir!" Sena said sitting up surprised at not getting a punishment.

"Alright," Hiruma said as he took off some of the weights on the bar "lets start with the bench press since were already here. Then we'll go to the pull-ups and then you should also do some leg work outs."

"O-okay." Sena said laying back down as Hiruma stood from putting the weights away and got behind the bar.

Hirumastood taller then Sena, his waist paralleled with wear the bar stood. Sena lifted the bar up and over and brought the bar down to his chest a little shakily. Hiruma's hands were out near the bar in case he had trouble, again. Sena did this about four times before putting the bar back up and then did another ten before they moved on to pull-ups.

Sena let the sounds of the weight room fill him up as he struggled to do his set of pull-ups. The other guys were busily working on their own work outs and talking about stuff that had happened at school or that they were planing to do. A lot of them were talking about what team the Devil bats would play next.

Suddenly Sena felt a pat on his lower back. He let himself hang their before he turned to look in to Hiruma's black eyes. Hiruma's face was closer to Sena then he had thought. Hirumastood both feet planted on the ground his head a little higher then the exact middle of Sena's back.

"That's twenty!" Hiruma said gun slung over his shoulder again.

"Oh. Twenty?" Sena said as he let himself drop. "That means I beat my record!" he said excitedly as his feet hit the ground. His legs were shaky for some reason causing him to land on his ankle wrong and fall in to Hiruma.

Hiruma opened his arms up and took Sena in to them taking the impact and keeping himself standing as his back leg dropped to give him more support.

A few people who were bench pressing near by stopped and Ishimaru who was spotting for Togano couldn't help but worry about their star runner.

"Sena are you okay?"

Sena heard the concern in Ishimaru's voice and pushed himself off Hiruma standing regularly though his ankle screamed against it.

"Yeah I'm fine!" Sena said with a small smile. "See?" he did a quick jig on his hurt ankle to satisfy Ishimaru.

Ishimaru sighed relived.

"I was worried we might have just lost our best running back before the Kanto tournament even begins."

"Nah!" Sena said smiling ignoring the twinge in his rigt ankle.

Hiruma looked down at Sena's ankle. He and Sena were only about a foot and a half away.

Ishimaru heard Togano, who he was spotting, yell at him to get his butt over their and help him. Ishimaru gave a quick yipe and excused himself so that he could go to help him get the bar off of him and back on the metal holder.

"Alright," Sena said smiling at Hiruma "lets go work on some leg exercises."

Hiruma looked at him and thought for a minute.

"Lets do some exercises that will strengthen your knees and hips." Hiruma lead Sena to the pads over by were Musashi was working on a weight machine.

Musashi sat with his legs out in front of him pushing off a metal plate in between himself and the other seat. The weights were beside himblocking some of his view of the mats. He was pushing 400lbs with hislegs, and that was only with his legs.

He met Hiruma's eyes for a minute and then he looked at Sena.

"So?" he asked.

Sena looked at him confused as Hiruma closed his eyes for a second before lowering himself on to the mat on his side so he wasn't facing either of them. He set his head so it was propped up against his right arm.

"Nothing." Hiruma told him.

"Oh." Musashi said closing his own eyes before turning back to his exercises eyes open as he ignored them to continue his own work out.

"What was that about?" Sena asked Hiruma.

Musashi glanced at Sena and Hiruma began to lift his left leg up and down making him look like a pair of scissors.

"It's nothing." Hiruma said before turning to glare at Sena. "Are you paying attention to what I'm doing squirt? You need to be working on this! I don't want your legs tyring out so quickly on us again!"

"Oh, yes sir!" Sena said stuttered watching Hiruma so that he himself could do it. After a minute or two he lay down on the second pad in front of Hiruma's head and began to do the scissors thing.

After about ten minutes of that Hiruma got up bringing Sena's eyes on him.

"Are we..."

"Stay their and do another twenty on that side and then switch sides. Keep doing that till practice is over."

"Uh...okay." Sena said not knowing why Hiruma wanted him to keep doing that.

Hiruma went off to work with Kurita and Komosubi(AN: thank you death by computer addiction)

'Well Hiruma did say this would strengthen up my legs. So that must be why. Stronger legs, plus running more should make my legs sturdier enough to run that fast longer!' Sena couldn't help but smile at this 'And if i become stronger and faster i can help the team better!'

Musashi glanced over at little Sena hear and their watching him working hard on the easy work out Hiruma had given him.

'Wonder what happened...' Musashi couldn't help but wonder to himself as he continued his work out and continued stealing glances at Sena wanting to ask him but to afraid to.

The team kept working on the work outs that were needed to help them with their position till the clock struck nine o'clock. At nine O'one Hiruma yelled at them to get in a huddle in the locker rooms. The guys walked that way slinging their sweat towels over their shoulders and talking. Fooling around like guys do, pushing and shoving laughing like school girls hear and their.

Musashi and Sena were the last two to enter.

"Hey Musashi." Sena said smiling.

"Hi." was Musashi's single word response.

Sena instantly shut-up knowing that Musashi wasn't a very talkative person.

However it was killing Musashi. He really wanted to ask Sena what had happened last night. What had he said to Hiruma? He really wanted to know. Musashi wasn't usually a prying guy but this was driving him nuts. (Because deep down he loved this kinda stuff, and he had helped to encourage his best friend to come out. He wanted to see, hear, his handy work.

"Alright. So as you all know we find out who we'll be playing tomorrow right after school. I need you all to be on time or die!!" he said lifting his machine gun and fiering (Sp?) off a few rounds to emphasize his meaning. "Got it?"

"Yes sir!" They all echoed sweating a bit from the gun shots.

"Now lets get a break."

Hiruma put up his free hand in the air and the guys began to cluster around him. His gun strap in his other hand gun on his shoulder.

"What are we gonna do in the Kanto tournament?"

"KILL THEM!!" the whole team replied"

"WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO IN THE KANTO TOURNAMENT?" Hiruma yelled.

"KILL THEM!!"the whole locker room exploded with their words as the whole team yelled.

"Thats right. Were going to,"

"KILL THEM!!" everyone yelled with Hiruma this time. Even Sena and Musashi (MUSASHI!!) were caught up in this.

'We're going to win it!' Sena thought to himself. 'This is Deimons year!'

--

AN: yeah...any way the nest chapter will hopefully be out soon!! :D