*Still even now I don't own Prince of Tennis*

Chapter 3

Obaasan posted the order we'll compete in.

Where am I? I scrolled through the list. Ah! There I am!

I found my name next to a Horio Satoshi. Who's that?

"Well looks like we'll be competing." I felt a pat on the back and turned around. The kid with the unibrow that was having a hard time in class was talking to me.

"You're Horio?" I questioned. "Yep! Don't feel down when you lose in the first round, I have two years of playing tennis under my belt!"

Ya? Well guess what I have 8 under mine! Of course, I wasn't going to say that out loud, though.

I turned around to walk over to the courts, but saw Fuji staring at me smiling. What? Did I look funny? I started to wipe my face when obaasan started talking.

"Okay kids, now we're going to start the first match!" obaasan yelled. I was going to have to sit through all the matches? Oh well. At least this gives me a good chance to see who can do what.

The first match was between two second years. They both entered the court confidently. After about 20 minutes of passing the ball back and forth sometimes hitting out, sometimes hitting the net, and just plain missing the ball, one of them won.

Wow... I see what my grandma meant about the level difference, though I don't know how good the regulars are.

After several more matches between all different grade levels, none that were all that interesting, it was my match.

Who knows maybe Horio turns out to actually be really good.

We entered the court and he started to serve the ball. He threw it up. Swung the racket and the ball bounced at his feet.

Or maybe not...

The poor kid looked red, I wanted to laugh but remembered myself all those years ago and held back, but the crowd let it out. Instead of turning to run like I did, at least he picked up the ball to try again.

He threw it up, and hit it. A weak serve to my side of the court. I hit the ball back hard. It struck his blind spot, fast as lightning. "0, 15!" my grandmother called.

The crowd was silent.

Horio slowly turned around, almost scared. Everyone else looked over to where the ball hit the gate and was rolling on the ground. I looked into the crowd hoping to see some of the regulars faces. I saw Tezuka surprised for a second until he hid it. Eiji was telling Oishi my return was pretty good excitedly, both were smiling. "Awesome!" I turned and saw Momoshiro saying. Fuji was almost insultingly surprised then settled into his normal mysterious smile although it felt slightly more ominous than before, and Kaido was hissing (I'm not sure why though).

I looked for Echizen among the group, but he wasn't there. I felt disappointed.

I turned back to Horio waiting for him to take out another ball and serve or get that ball, but he was just staring at the ball on the ground.

I almost felt bad so I tried to encourage him.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get it next time!" I said sincerely.

Some turned and gave the stink eye like I said something really insulting. Some laughed at him when I called out.

What did I do?

"Shut up!" he shouted annoyed. He grabbed the ball and started to serve. He hit it with all his might. It whooshed by me and hit the fence. "0, 30!" obaasan called.

Why was he angry? Was it cause I tried to encourage him? I looked at my grandma for some help. She gave me the look of 'you're in a tough situation'. I looked back at Horio. He was scowling.

Back in Sakura we'd always say that to each other when they couldn't hit it, we all knew it was meant to be nice. Maybe boys took it differently. I'm going to have to be careful with what I say.

He pulled out another tennis ball and served. It hit the ground hard in the middle of the court. I returned it easily, hitting it to his blind spot again. He turned as it flew past him without being able to hit it. It bounced to the gate. "0, 45!"

I saw all the shocked faces once more. "Guess it wasn't just luck," a few said.

Horio hit it once more into the net and then out of bounds, I won.

The second rounds started.

I continued to beat all my opponents just through hitting it into there blind spots.

Finally the championship. "Sachihiro wins!"

The second year on the other side of the net went into a fit throwing his tennis racket against the fence, muttering how close he was.

I smiled. I became a regular!

The other regulars went up to congratulate me, with the exception of Momo and him...

"And here's your jacket!" I looked at what my grandma was handing me. I took the blue and white jacket and put it on. Echizen finally came back yawning, followed by Momoshiro.

"I found this kid snoozing in the grass again." Momo-senpai said. "So who's the new regular?" Ryoma asked lazily.

All eyes turned to me.

"I am." I said straight faced. I didn't like this guy. Even if he is a regular.

Ryoma didn't change his expression at all, "Oh." He sounded bored.

Before he could walk away obaasan pulled us both together.

"Ryoma this is the grandson I was talking about, Sachihiro." Obaasan said cheerfully. "And Sachihiro this is-" "Ryoma Echizen, we've met." I interrupted.

Obaasan's smile faded a little. I started feeling bad. "Whatever." Ryoma said walking away.

My grandma sighed, "Well kids will be kids." She smiled again turning around.

"Now let's start practice." I walked over to Horio. I don't know exactly what I did wrong, but I was going to try and correct it.

"Hey Horio!" I jogged up to him, "Sorry about before." He turned around and looked at me. "It's okay, it's all part of the game right?" He stared at me funny, I tried to ignore it though. "It's my fault for being mentally weak and falling for you taunts." Oh, so they thought I was taunting him. "You know up close, your face is so feminine." Uh oh. I went slightly pale. "Hey! You're kidding right? I'm a guy!" This was bad, I looked for my grandma but she was off talking to the captian.

"I know you're a guy! I'm just saying," he leaned closer my face turned just a hint red. "You would make a really pretty girl." I blushed. Shoot. I looked away. Was I supposed to say thank you to that? It doesn't really sound like a compliment to tell a guy he'd make a pretty girl.

"Hey!" I decided to take it as an insult. "Are you calling me girly?"

"Ok! Ok! I take it back!" he laughed.

Whew! That was close!

Tezuka saw us all talking to each other and sighed.

"100 laps around the courts" he shouted.

100... was he serious?

Everyone groaned but started to run, I followed.

On my second lap I saw another tall boy walk up to obaasan. He wore glasses and had spiky hair. As the others saw him they started getting nervous.

Some freshmen including Horio didn't see him and ran out of steam. They stopped in front of obaasan and the boy, panting for breath on their 5 or so lap. Out of nowhere the boy with glasses whipped out 3 cups for the 3 boys. Horror appeared on their faces. I ran past and looked in the cups. There was a brownish greenish bubbly liquid with small chunks of who knows what in it.

I almost gagged looking at it. What were the freshman supposed to do with it? Suddenly I turned around to see it being forced down Horio's throat as the other two held their nose, closed their eyes and quickly chugged it down.

THEY DRANK IT!?

The boy with glasses smiled evilly. The first boy collapsed, the second ran to the bathroom. Horio started to barf but tried to hold it in as he ran to the bathroom.

Scary...

All the other members noticed and started running faster though most were running out of steam at around their 17th lap.

Now that I think about it, obaasan mentioned a boy who made frightening juices that were supposedly extremely good for you if it did't kill you first. I think his name was Inui Sadaharu. Ya, that was it.

I turned to see 5 more members fallen ill to Inui's mystery drink.

Oh god! I picked up the pace. A minute later I realized I was right up with the regulars, running at the same pace as them. 18 laps later we were the only survivors, avoiding the bubbly killer "juice".

30 laps later we hadn't slowed at all we had 20 more laps to go.

Inui was talking to obaasan. I don't know the conversation but obaasan nodded. Inui walked forward a few steps and yelled, "The last member to cross the finish line here on the hundreth lap gets to drink this whole gallon of Inui's Victory Juice Version 2.0" the mad scientist pulled out a gallon container with a smoking, bubbling content that changed colors.

We all wanted to live till tomorrow so, we ran faster.

We shoved each other out of the way. I squeezed my way through Fuji and Momoshiro to find myself in the front going toe to toe with Ryoma. Even if I wasn't last anymore, I didn't want to lose to that boy.

He must have thought the same thing.

We both ran even faster (if that was even possible), still tied no matter how hard I ran.

We became so caught up with competing between just the two of us the other regulars caught up, and passed us by.

Ryoma and I looked at each other then full on sprinted up to them.

On the last lap, one corner left to turn.

Echizen and I pushed our way through into the middle of the heard as we rounded the bend.

Everyone came out at the same time.

"So who won?" Horio who still looked very pale questioned.

All the members who were present and conscious looked between all of us.

"I guess it was a tie. No one drinks the juice." Thank you obaasan!

"Or they could all share it." Inui suggested.

"No!" all the members shouted except for Fuji who smiled, "Sure, why not." He was looking straight at me again, must be cause I'm the new regular.

Some regulars threw tennis balls at Fuji but he dodged them and laughed.

This could be fun.

I laughed too. Some other pale people started laughing, gaining color with each "ha". Eventually everyone was laughing except for Kaido who was trying not to smile, Tezuka who was to serious, and Echizen who was to... Echizen.

Oh well.

I continued to laugh. A minute or to later the laughs finally died down to a snicker, and practice was considered over.

I ran over to obaasan when I saw her walking to the car. She saw me and turned.

"So what'd you think? Not to bad right?" she asked smiling.

I smiled back.

"I think I could get used to this place."

-End Chapter-

*Author's Note*
This chapter was kind of boring but I needed to set up her spot in the regulars so this chapter was necessary. The matches were kind of short but just go with me here. Thank you to everyone who gave up there time to actually read up to chapter 3 (or 4 if you count the epilogue). I'll post the next chapter soon hopefully. Hold tight till next time!