Thanks to all for the reviews:D I can't really thank you enough and they were so thoughtful--abhorsen3, you guessed right about Fuji and yes I meant it like that, only you phrased it so much better than what I was intending to message out :DDDD, thank you for your lovely reviews!! (Keigo is a bookworm, I swear on my grave XDD) And Darkest Illusions!! Thank you for your review as well and I'm glad you liked my story, we do need more of royal get-together fics only that they're hard to write I've noticed :DDDDDDD They tend to cooperate better when they're already in a relationship. OTL

Ta-da it's the next part and it's…not the last OTL. This is becoming too long for my liking; I didn't intend this to be that long.

No future scenes here I'm afraid, but I did manage for all the interactions to finish up to the end. (TENIPURI SO DID NOT END IT DID NOT OH GOD) And I'm debating if I should rate an M for the next one; it does get a bit…intense:D Ah well. We'll see.

I'll promise I'll go edit my fics when I have the time OTL

--

You bring out your serve. He studies you for a time, and he brings out his self-actualization. You smirk and think it is too easy to stimulate him.

--

His tennis disappoints you at first

Tennis, you have learned long ago, was a type of a strange art form, deciding where you would hit the next and predict the opponent's next move. Tennis was an art in which two people are needed to finish it and make the audience gasp in awe. Like the match with Tezuka's where the form took on a steady burning fire in the shape of determination. Or the match with Echizen's and Sanada's where the form was the exact form of passion, the will to defeat.

Echizen's tennis is too reckless, slamming the ball with a style that was not his, the tennis too unpredictable; it is up to the point of you getting impatient, so, is this your tennis? The cheers reach your ears, of Echizen's play style, his self-actualization, and you grit your teeth, thinking, fools to all, maybe expect for Tezuka, since he is looking as impassionate as ever. The points do not matter now, and you think yourself a fool as well for anticipating this match that will give you no satisfaction in the end, You were right, he was not the worthy tennis player everyone claimed to him to be.

You bring out the Ice World, and he is crushed. You see Sanada look at you from outside the courts, and you know he is thinking of their match a year ago.

The eyes in him changes after the fifth game, and they observe you with a sense of amusement but there is also a bit of respect in them. You don't want to care, but a part of you does.

"You're strong."

It is flung at you carelessly, the wind traveling his words, and you hear the understatement in that sentence: but I am stronger than you.

Your face carves into a cold smile, and here the will to break him takes over you so strongly, and this feeling frightens you—it is a feeling that is even stronger than the time with Tezuka's and you do not know the reason for this. Maybe it was because you hated confidence in any form, and you wanted him to bow down before you. Maybe you wanted him to see you in your true form, why you were the Hyotei captain and why you were the tennis player people saw you to be. Either way, you wanted to make him feel powerless. You bring out the impossible and you make Echizen unable to move.

He brings out the Tezuka Zone.

He closes his eyes at first, and you think, so he's finally lost it, amused and yet still disappointed that Echizen was just a fluke but no matter; Hyotei was more important than your desire for a match, but even here, even then, you still think he has something up his sleeve, if the match at the Kantou meant anything to you. You still think, in a small part of your mind, that this wouldn't be it, it wasn't over yet, and you throw the ball.

He returns it.

Your eyes widen in shock and his open, directed to you, and there is a new sense of power in them, saying, you can't beat me that easy. You stare back and answer back no, but I still will beat you either way. The match resumes again, and you realize this movement after Echizen returns the shots a few more times, The Tezuka Zone.

This makes you angry. You don't know why. He returns all your shots and across the net, you think you might feel Tezuka's presence near him, urging him on, and it is not just you and him anymore, it is the three of them and you hate it, you hate it, and you can't explain why. The speed of your strokes increase. This is suppose to be a match between you and me.

"Game Echizen! 1-4!!"

You see all his weaknesses. You see where you could hit the ball. Yet he returns all of it, and his face is amused. He looks as if he is enjoying himself.

" You'll be one to shave your hair," he taunts over the net, and you sneer. You hit the ball over to that annoying brat and think, I will win, I need to win, fuck what the hell is happening.

Your hands freeze and he slams the ball right back again. You can't return it, and he seems to know it before you. You see that smirk fleet onto his face.

The Rondo of Destruction.

--

The match lasts, still. Both of them are panting out by now.

"I'll admit, I'm surprised you got here even this far," you leer while your racket collides with the ball—the ball is heavy and dull, but you hit it anyway—"But you can't beat me, not ever." You mean it as an absolution. It is also to convince yourself.

Not ever.

He does not answer back, just the same eyes and now those eyes look like little orbs of gold, shining and sparkling, and you know he wants to break that absolution, if it is an absolution at all. Your tennis loses its cool and your tennis becomes as furious and fast as him. He reminds you of yourself in the most distracting ways sometimes, like the way he would never give up to the very last shot, like the way he feels pleasure in proving people wrong and proving himself in the process. He remind of you of what you are, what you have been, and it almost feels as if you're looking at another version of yourself. He was not like Tezuka, whose face had been purely noble during their match, for the sake of his team, face set in grim determination, but Echizen, Echizen's was alight with challenge, he was playing for his own selfish reasons, and you see him, and you want to keep that face captured, the flame. The ball does not register into your mind. Passion. Show me passion.

Yes.

You can't help but smile inside your head, and you drive the ball into the point of almost insanity. This is it, this was what you wanted and Echizen was giving you this, this challenge, this thrill, this tension, this friction. The ball obeys you and curves in all the directions you want, and Echizen returns them all.

"Tezuka!"

Tezuka looks at you. His face is unreadable.

"This is the result of what you'll get if you rest your team's fate onto the shoulders of a first year!"

He knows though, like he always does; he is another captain just like you and he could depict the message hidden under there: He could surpass you one day. Do you know that?

He shifts his gaze to Echizen; the ball is heading towards the boy.

"I haven't given it to him yet." You hear him say. I know what he is capable of. A proud, bitter echo inside the air and you smirk at that.

"No, I'll be the one to take it away from him!," he adds in, and you know he will, soon enough.

It is here you hear a disturbing creak. You look up, and it makes your eyes widen.

"Watch out!!!!!!! Ryoma-kun!!!!!!!!!!"

Oh shit.

The lights that were hanging on the stands are coming off, and it was about to drop into Echizen's side of the court. And the ball was still in Echizen's favor.

Get out of the way, you idiot, get out, move, move, move!!!!!!!

He returns the ball nevertheless. You did not expect anything less, but still, you cannot be helped but shocked. You miss the ball, you do not even attempt to run after it, frozen to the ground you are.

Insane, is what Oshitari would murmur, and you have to agree with him. He grins at you, a true grin, promising you so many things you want, and him swearing that you'll get them all, wait and see.

"I broke your Ice World," he throws over to you and you smile back, he feels like tennis.

"Let's see the end for this game, then." As expected of the Samurai Echizen.

The game resumes.

--

"You can't be satisfied with only this kind of tennis!," you shout to him, and right now, it is the only two of you existing, no one else.

"I should be the one to tell you that," he returns, and everything is a blur to you.

You laugh, a real laugh that was true than anything else. Echizen is also looking at him in merit, and eyes hold you in again; you don't want to look away. This is want you wanted. A challenge, a way to show someone that you were powerful, and Echizen is experiencing that right now, and you crave for this win, not for the team, no , but for himself. You watch his wrist flickering, and you use your Insight to the fullest, I will win, I will win, and you concentrate up to his very last blink.

"89-89! Echizen Ryoma!"

Show me more, those eyes say to him right now and you can't help but oblige him.

--

Your body won't move. Your mind is screaming more, more, more.

The screams are getting to you. Echizen is sprawled across from you, a net dividing you both. You feel dead, but it is almost like living.

"Get up! Get up, Atobe!" Shishido's voice; only he could be so aggressive to his captain, "Get up, this isn't like you, stand up, damnit!"

"Echizen! Up, get up!"

The winner would be Hyotei.

"The winner…would be Hyotei."

This is also an absolution. This would not change, no, you would not be the one to change this.

You get up shakily. Echizen does not move. You look at him and you think, you are going to win, aren't you though. You like to break the predicaments made by others, don't you. You do not feel sick over this; your eyes are beginning to lose focus, your mind hazy.

It was a good game.

You thought that there would be no match as satisfying as Tezuka's, because Tezuka was the light of the junior tennis in Japan, the one who everyone wanted to beat, to overcome. Yet you had not felt the thrill of beating him then; here, you are about to lose but you still feel alive. You don't know why. It doesn't matter now; you are about to fade anyways.

You tend to take people by surprise don't you? Echizen Ryoma.

You lose consciousness.

--

Later, at night, you feel the rough, bushy feeling of your hair and you stay silent. The team is present at your house, and Shishido is ranting furiously that they should bury Echizen alive and the rest of Seigaku as well.

"Will you shut up," you finally say when Shishido gets to his thirty-seventh way on how they could murder Echizen, maybe while he was asleep, "And, yes, that was an order."

"How could you be so calm about your hair?!" Shishido waves his hands in exaggeration, his face in fury. You have to roll your eyes for his drama. "It was your hair, fuck, and he had no fucking right to just shave it off your—"

"You seem to forget that you also cut off your own glory of hair," you remark dryly, and he flushes at this, memories coming back to him. He shuts his mouth after that. "You also seem to forget that it was I who established the ridiculous bet in the first place. Echizen was keeping his end in the bet. I ," you look in mirror thoughtfully, wondering why he didn't shave off your head bald but left it at that," would have done the same to him." Had you won.

There is a cold silence at those words, letting the loss sink into them, and it is a bitter atmosphere, that fact that they had been steamrolled by Seigaku twice, and Mukahi grunts, "We could have done better."

We could have done better and Seigaku would have done more. You chuckle a bit warily at that. "Next time," you amend, and it would be next time, there was always a next time. Next year, the next and the next. You would not give up and neither would the others. Hyotei was too proud sometimes, and this was why you had chosen Hyotei among all the other school, for its pride, for its glory. It reminds you of what you will be, one day.

Ootori smiles at this and he nods. "It was a good match though, Buchou," he offers steadily and the rest of the team agrees, although Oshitari throw in, " A bit mad, but still good." His eyes tell you more than that, but you avoid it.

You let a smirk grace over your lips. "Of course it was," and you touch your locks again. It was tennis, after all.

He has given you something, and now you want more.

--

You do not look into his direction during the insane party before the finals. He, however, runs you over, and he sees your hair, the one that nearly cost you a fortune to implant your original glory until it grew back, and he raises an eyebrow. But he doesn't comment on it. He does, however give you this barely, non-existent smile, and you can almost, almost hear him say good game, wasn't it?

They have never really spoken to each other, only these misleading words, traveling thorough the air, only barbs exchanged between them. People would think they might be sworn enemies, the way they insult, the way they attack.

What they do not know is, the world is much deeper than what meets the eye.

You return it with your own silence, you better win the finals.

Don't I always?

--

Oshitari finally tells you carefully that you seem to be distant ever since the match with Echizen. You snap at him to work on his doubles if he has time for such nonsense.

--

Oshitari stays silent when he boards on the helicopter. You bark orders at the driver and the helicopter lifts up. Momoshiro looks nervous, but he seems to be shocked for a brief moment, enough to ask, "Why are you doing this?"

You will not meet those eyes. They will never understand, because Momoshiro has never seen Echizen like you had, as a person to be defeated but not an equal, someone that you need to prove your worth to. Oshitari hums quietly, but he is too waiting for an answer.

What you tell him is, very far from the truth, "We don't want Rikkai to win, do we now?" You focus your attention to the ground below you, growing farther and farther away. "You beat us all once. At least have the power to go all the way up to the peak."

Momoshiro nods, accepting your answer, whereas Oshitari snorts and nearly elbows you. This was not about the teams, it was about you and him, only you and him, but you cannot admit that to anyone else, but still, Oshitari knows. Bullshit, you could hear him say, loud and clear, and for a moment there you are tempted to tell him, well then? What do you want me to say? That I want Echizen and only Echizen to achieve the peak? That I want him to play, that I need to see him play, that I want to see him alive? You do not say, because Oshitari knows all this and he just wants you to admit this over your head, and perhaps more. You do not say this, because you are capable of hiding away your most inner thoughts like the time with your mother, and that was why you had become the captain in your first year.

You do not say what Oshitari want you to admit most of all: I want him to play, and I want to see that only for myself.

--

He blinks at you. You stare back at him. He blushes and averts his eyes.

What the fuck.

Next to you, Oshitari is speechless and Momoshiro is gaping like an idiot. Echizen is sitting across from you, fiddling with his fingers; the fingers that made you surpass your limit, not that he would remember now. He didn't remember anything, not even tennis, and you have to suppress a gulp at that.

It was as if you just fell into a cliché angst film, the one your mother often watched, where someone lost their memory and it was up to someone else to retrieve it. You were not some kind of fucking hero and what you want to do now is to shake those small shoulders hard and scream how could you not remember? How could you not remember what you are, what you had reduced all the players into, what you had reduced me into? How could you forget how damned you were, all so fucking cocky and that hateful confidence, that attitude, begging to be tested? How could you forget all so suddenly?

You turn away.

His eyes are studying you again, wide hazel eyes, not the golden you have seen in the courts, and you feel his hesitancy waving into you and you grind your teeth, don't look at me, don't look at me, don't.

Oshitari is shifting next to you and you feel his anxiety as well, and Momoshiro is just sitting there and blinking, just lost for words and frozen.

You know your eyes are locked up and cold when you do meet his eyes. He blinks his eyes at you and you stay the icy composure people often see on you, except for the few ones you acknowledge as someone important in your life. This Echizen was not one of them. This was not the Echizen who played you and won you over, this was not the brat that bugged you even in your sleep, this was not it.

You know your eyes are showing hatred. And you know that this…Echizen received the message when he lowers his eyes again, hands clasped tightly in front of him. You do not bother correcting him, thinking that maybe it had been hatred after all, all these unhealthy doses of Echizen-musings, all those insults and barbs. It seems like hate right now, thinking it was only you who knew how their match had really felt, you who only knew this secret, no point in the secret if there was nobody else to share it with.

You know this to be not true, but it hardly matters anymore.

--

"I'm coming with you."

Sanada nods barely, and they walk together side-by-side to where Echizen might be at. Spectators are watching them, mouths open, as they watch the King and Emperor line up together. You ignore them.

"You want him to remember, don't you," Sanada says in amidst of their silence, and you are caught off-guard for a moment, then you remember that Sanada had also played the boy, not that long ago. This make you twitch slightly. Sanada is not looking at you when he plunges on, "You want him to remember you. This isn't really for his sake is it?"

"As if you are any different," you sneer, and your eyes focus on the empty courts where Momoshiro dragged Echizen minutes ago. "This isn't really for Rikkai is it? It isn't for Yukimura."

He arches an eyebrow. He does not answer the accusation. "He defeated you."

"He defeated you," you snap back, voice threatening to freeze, "And I could defeat you now."

He smiles a grim smile. "By using the Ice World, is it?"

"Ahn."

"It doesn't matter. He overcame it; so will I." The voice is too steady for your liking. "That would be my only loss. They will be no more."

"Oh?" You smirk at his bluntness but you do nit rise up to the challenge. "You could have defeated him than. You didn't use every movement against him."

You touched a nerve; Sanada stiffens and whirls his head around to glare at you. "I felt no reason to," is what he says, and you can feel anger inside it.

"Because he was unworthy?"

"Because he is young."

"Young?" You laugh; you can't help it, it was pure irony. "He's only two years younger then us."

He averts his eyes. His voice is hard. "I felt no need to break him. He still could go higher."

"And you felt the need to crush Tezuka." You let the curve of your lips disappear. "Why, I wonder."

"You once beat him as well. You tell me."

"You didn't feel any satisfaction, did you."

"……..No." It was not a question; you did not mean it to be.

"He could have defeated you still. Echizen would have. The results wouldn't have changed." He has something, something that is just waiting to be revealed. Sanada knows this as well, which is why he stays silent.

You chuckle. "You underestimated him. He is not the one to go down easily." You knew this the moment he broke your Ice World. Sanada knew this as well, the moment Echizen used his Cool Drive for his win.

Sanada does not speak after that, and you do not choose to provoke him anymore.

--

"Are you sure he's still in his memory-lost state?", you inquire dryly to Sanada, who was standing next to him and observing Echizen attacking Hiyoshi with his moves, "Because frankly, it is impossible for someone to learn tennis at a speed as fast as this."

Sanada grunts, his eyes focusing on the boy. "His body might remember it for him," he replies, "even if his mind doesn't."

You smirk and watch this new Echizen that somehow resembled the old Echizen in more ways than one, and it occurs to you that maybe it wouldn't matter if he did not gain his memory back, you still could play him, and this Echizen seems to love tennis just as much, if the grin on his face indicated that more then anything else. Your hands itch for your racket.

You walk up to the courts next, your eyes taking in Echizen as a whole. Echizen is startled at the sight of you, his eyes freezing for a moment there, his shoulders tensing, and you feel slightly guilty for the hatred you emitted back in the helicopter. You offer him a small smile unrevealing your eyes a little, and he relaxes, as he too, smiles, and you think it is almost like a smirk.

After the fourth game, he stops in his mid-serve and he lowers his racket. You frown at the stillness in his pose, and then you are looking into his eyes, his eyes.

"Monkey King," he says, and you refrain from gaping, although you're tempted, and Momoshiro is the one laughing in relief. You stay silent, and now you feel you can appreciate the light in him, gold, gold, gold. You hold his eyes for a long time, and there are so many things you want to say to him, things you need to hear out from your mouth, but in the end it only comes down to—" You better win the match, brat."

He laughs, and you can smirk as well, noting Sanada was gone as soon as soon as Echizen regained his attitude back.

Coward. But you know that secretly Sanada is relieved, although the bastard would never admit it.

Times are changing because of your strength. You laugh long and hard at this after he has gone, and while Hiyoshi looks at you as if you are mad, he too, knows the insanity you might possess because of Echizen. It was as if you have discovered a new side of you through Echizen, the will to run harder and faster, higher, and still, it has to be more.

You are going to change history, just like your father, if not more.

And you know that you are imagining your shock at this very thought, knowing very well that this was same person that challenged you to the courts for the very first time, not so very long ago.

"Echizen Ryoma," your lips escape the name, and it tastes of a new absolution; you shiver slightly at the sound, the sound of a promise.

--

Yukimura is crushing the boy.

You want to kill him.

Yukimura is laughing, a soft, mellow laugh, and he is looking at his opponent in distaste, his eyes full of cruel amusement. "Is this all you have, boy?" He is refusing to accept Echizen's existence, and you are watching that tennis, the tennis that lead Rikkai up to the top, the Rikkai tennis, cruel and unforgiving. Echizen looks stunned. Frozen. The racket clatters to the ground.

A few shots after that and he looks dead, as dead as the grave, as the weeds that were pulled out from his mother so long ago. You wave that thought away, but the words remain with you.

People change, Keigo.

Echizen. You stare at this boy and you want to have him. You see him in this dead state, and you have seen him in his confusion. You have seen him venerable; you have seen what he would give to everyone, including you. You want more.

You want everything; it was in your nature. And right now, you want to have him, no matter what the costs.

And you see him go up to the limits that were the highest of any tennis player.

--

Tennis is not the art of calculating. It is suppose to be tennis, just tennis. Tennis, how it sounds, rough and brittle, fast and furious, never stopping to pause.

Tennis was Echizen Ryoma.

Echizen Ryoma was, is, will be tennis.

--

Seigaku won.

You notice Echizen and Yukimura touch hands hesitantly. You would have thought that Echizen might have scoffed at this so-called Child of God, but Echizen is staring at Yukimura intently; Yukimura is letting a fragile smile grace over his lips, and it is soon gone. You knew that Echizen would have won. You know that you will defeat him someday. Today would not be it.

You turn away and call your driver; you will not see Seigaku take on the trophy that would have been yours had not Echizen appeared out of thin air. You do not want to meet Echizen. You do not want to see his eyes and you do not want him to see you and read you. They both knew each other too well from all the well-practiced silence, and you do not want that silence right now.

--

"Keigo," your mother is sipping a glass of wine and you do not look up from your dinner, dabbing his mouth with a napkin, "You've changed."

You pause slightly at this sudden announcement and resume your earlier activity a moment later. "Have I?" you inquire, and you still do not look up to meet your mother's eyes. It was as if you were seeing your own.

There is a small laugh and a shake of your mother's head. "Boys," she says fondly, but you do not answer back. You know you have changed, and you know who has changed you.

--

"America."

Tezuka's voice is as steady as ever when he nods and confirms it. "Ah."

You hate that voice right now. "He will be going to America. Just like that. Just like how he suddenly appeared out of the air." You shake your head, and your face is about to lose your mask. "He's going to go back."

"He has done what he could here." Tezuka's eyes glint from the light; you will not think Tezuka was losing his façade as well. "It is time for him to move on. Become someone better. Become…." The voice wavers. You do not take heed.

"Did you tell him that?" you snap, and Tezuka looks at you in surprise; he has never seen you in this state, but you do not bother hiding your emotions, not this time, "Did you tell him to place his talent elsewhere now? Did you tell him to become the pillar of the world? Did you—"

"Atobe," Tezuka says sharply, but you are almost to the brink of helplessness, something you have never felt before, you edge closer to Tezuka and fist his shirt, looking into those brown eyes, the eyes of a rival and a friend.

"Did you tell him to go and achieve the Grand Slam and meet you halfway for the tournaments while you aim for your own achievements in Germany?" you hiss low, and Tezuka's eyes widen. There is only harsh breathing from either side. It may not be the truth, but you know that Tezuka had been thinking that thought, one way or the other. You let go. You can't handle this, you won't.

"His flight is tomorrow." Tezuka's voice is a bit shaky when he says this, and you stay silent. "Atobe. He'll be back." Someday. You do not know when that someday will be.

"I don't care," you throw over your shoulder, and you walk away from him.

It is the biggest lie you have ever said.

--

The next one is the last part, yes I am sure of it or I am going to cry it will be out of my hands. 

I really hoped I convinced everyone why a do like royal pair so much and what makes them work…..it does ( besides the fact that they're all oh-so-hot together.

I wanted to write an essay for this , but whenever I DO think of them together my mind is like, OH GOD MMMMMM HOTNESS and ())&(&&#$#$$&&. It stops after that, so I did the next best thing, writing a story for it. Be awed by my insanity XD

I just have to keep them pure on this one OH GOD (face palms) but it seems like part three is just begging for the tension to break, and oh GOD.

Will refresh my mind by working on my other school load for a change 