Chapter Ten: Fight! Seigaku versus Hyotei

Monthly Pro Tennis:

RING! RING!

Inoue Mamoru grabbed the receiver of the phone that was ringing shrilly, demanding to be picked up and answered it. "Moshi moshi?" His eyes widened. "Nani?! Seigaku and Hyotei will be against each other in the first round of the Kantou tournament?!" Inoue sighed. "I understand. Thank you."

And he placed the receiver back before frowning, leaning back on his chair. 'Seigaku and Hyotei, huh? The school that lose at this match will lose their chance to go to the Nationals. And both schools are evenly matched in terms of skill. This will be a tough one for Seigaku.'

He then got up in search of his kouhai who was currently in the midst of developing her photographs.

"Shiba," called Inoue as Shiba was focusing onto several photographs that were still in the midst of developing, several already hanging out to dry on the lines for developing photographs.

"Ah. Inoue-sempai," said Shiba. "What is it?"

"We've just received the report about the first round of the Kantou tournament," explained Inoue. "Seigaku will be playing against Hyotei."

Shiba blinked. "Eh?! But both are from Tokyo! The school that lose will lose their chance to go to the Nationals!"

"Exactly," said Inoue, nodding before he noticed the photographs that Shiba was currently in the midst of developing. "Ara? Are those the pictures taken when you went to Seigaku by yourself last week?"

"Yes," said Shiba, nodding. "I can't always be following sempai."

"I suppose so," said Inoue, chuckling before he noticed one of the photographs and blinked. "Eh?" He picked up said photo. "This boy...he is Rikkaidai's Kirihara Akaya! And that girl behind him...their freshman ace, Echizen Rika!"

"Sempai, you know these two?"

"Not personally, but I know of them," said Inoue. "They are regulars in Kantou's number one team – Rikkaidai Fuzoku."

"Yes, but their captain has to beat some sense and manners into that boy!" growled Shiba, readying a fist. "He actually had the audacity to call me 'old'!"

Inoue chuckled as Shiba fumed and started cursing and chewing out a certain sophomore regular of Rikkaidai and looked at the photo of the two Rikkaidai regulars. 'So even Rikkaidai is interested in Seigaku, huh?'

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Meanwhile, things aren't looking so good for Seigaku's tennis club.

This month's intra-ranking tournament to decide the regulars for the Kantou tournament had gotten Inui back his place as a regular, but had gotten Momoshiro booted out instead as he'd lost to Tezuka and Inui both in Block A and had lost his place as a regular. Inui, whom Seigaku had gotten wind from Kaidoh that he trains 2.25 times harder than whatever training that he had assigned them had showed the results of the fruits of his labour. Tezuka who was Inui's last opponent in Block A had a slightly difficult time with him that he showed his trump card for the first time – Tezuka Zone, though Ryoga knew that as an uncompleted version of the Samurai Zone which his father had created. Though Tezuka is brilliant enough to come up with it all by himself, his technique was imperfect, compared to the one that his father used on himself and his sister every time that they played.

Ryoga was also worried, however.

He knew that Hyotei had a practice match with Rikkaidai once before the lots for the Kantou tournament was drawn, and knowing his sister's school, they were unbelievably good, every single one of their regulars on National-level, since after joining Rikkaidai, his sister had improved a great deal, defeating him several times and now, the scores of their matches were always at 7-6 instead of the usual 6-4 before they had moved to Japan. Now, the number of Rika and Ryoga's wins at tennis matches against each other stands at 36-32, with Ryoga in the lead. However, even with all of the improvements that the two did, they were still unable to take even one game from their father...even with BOTH of them playing against their father who had both his eyes closed.

However, that was just the least of his worries, especially since Momoshiro hadn't been seen for three days ever since he was dropped from the regulars and the club was already going crazy, with the Golden Pair having an argument and Ryoga sighed, fishing out his phone, inviting the attention from Inui who was beside him, having just finished warming up with Shiki.

"Ryoga-san? Who are you calling?" asked the data master, pausing in the midst of scribbling in his ever trusty notebook, muttering "Ii data" under his breath every now and then.

"I'm calling my sister," said Ryoga with a sigh, dialling a number and putting his phone to his ear. "I can't leave right now and I'm not about to have Shiki skip training just to retrieve Momoshiro, so I'm going to have to get my sister to retrieve our wayward player."

Rikkaidai Middle High:

The music of someone playing Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major K218 could be heard coming from the music clubroom and several students passing by the music room slowed down to look through the see through glass to catch the sight of a handsome silver haired teen with cerulean blue eyes playing the violin with intense concentration, his eyes shut.

There was no practice for the tennis regulars that day, thus, Sora and Rika both were waiting inside the music room as another freshman girl, Fuyama Miyako from the class next door accompanied Riku on the piano and the music club's teacher, Mikaki-sensei listened to them both play, tapping her foot occasionally on the ground.

"Kiss me sweet...I'm sleeping in silence...all alone...in ice—"

Rika blushed as Riku and Miyako both stopped their playing to stare at her. "Sorry," muttered Rika, heading towards the door to answer her phone.

"Rika?"

Rika frowned, recognising the voice on the phone as her brother's as the music started playing from inside the room once more. "Niisan? What is it?"

Ryoga's voice sounded apologetic. "Rika, I know that you do not have tennis practice today, but are you free now?"

Rika frowned; she was planning to go with Sora to accompany Riku to Hyotei for his music training that day. "Well...I was planning to go to Hyotei with Sora and Riku...but I can cancel that if there's anything important. Why?"

"Can you go and retrieve one of my tennis club members?" asked Ryoga, sounding exasperated. "He's gone MIA and the tennis club is going crazy because of his absence."

Rika sighed.

"Rika?" Ryoga sounded almost pleading.

"Who is it?" asked Rika, running her fingers through her hair.

"Momoshiro Takeshi," said Ryoga. "You should know who he is, seeing how you played him when you came to Seigaku two weeks ago."

Rika nearly groaned. "...fine. I'll try to find him and kick him over to Seigaku." Click.

Rika then opened the door of the music room and ventured for Sora to come near the door before lowering her voice. "I won't be able to accompany you and Riku to Hyotei today," she said apologetically. "I have to retrieve one of the tennis club members of my brother's who'd gone MIA."

Sora grinned and nodded. "I understand," he said. "Go on ahead."

"Sorry," said Rika apologetically before leaving.

Rika knew the one place where she can find the MIA Seigaku player if he wasn't in Seigaku: the street tennis courts.

Rika walked up the steps leading to the street tennis courts only to find that plenty of people had chose to visit the street tennis courts that day. Momoshiro was there, along with Ann as well as six Hyotei tennis players.

Rika sighed, stopping at the top of the stairs leading to the street tennis courts, causing everyone to turn their attention towards her, fortunately stopping an argument and a possible fight about to break out between Momoshiro and Ann with the Hyotei regulars.

"I knew it," said Rika with a sigh, glaring at Momoshiro. "You're here, alright."

Momoshiro blinked with confusion. "Ara? Ryoga-san's little sister? Rika-san, right?"

Ann sighed with relief. "Rika! It's a good thing that you're here."

"Konichiwa, Ann," said Rika, nodding politely to her. "My brother told me to retrieve his wayward club member here who had gone MIA." She said, jerking her thumb towards Momoshiro. "And by the way..." Rika looked at the Hyotei members present. "What is Hyotei doing here?"

The other regulars of Hyotei blinked. All of them recognised the girl as Atobe's cousin since they had met her twice at the parties held at the Atobe mansion, even though the girl may be wearing her school uniform since they had also met her when the Hyotei regulars went to Rikkaidai once about two weeks back for a practice match. Rika may not have played against them, just watching all their matches under orders from Rikkaidai's training manager and data master, Yanagi Renji, but they still have no doubts about her skill since she's good enough to defeat Kirihara Akaya and a number of the regulars on Rikkaidai's tennis team, putting her on par with the top cards of Rikkaidai – Yukimura, Sanada and Yanagi.

Atobe smirked as he eyed his cousin up and down. "Looking good, Rika-chan," he said. "No wonder Yukimura had his eye on you."

Rika twitched dangerously and cracked her knuckles together threateningly, causing all boys present to gulp nervously. "Kei, you got a death wish?" she asked in a suspiciously sweet voice. "Or do you want to see your maker early?"

Atobe gulped. "Erm...no."

"Good." Rika grunted. "Anyway, I'm here to kick this peach butt—" Momoshiro twitched and Ann coughed to cover up her laughter. "—back to Seigaku since the entire club had been panicking ever since he went MIA. So if you'll excuse me." She reached out and grabbed Momoshiro by the ear, twisting it and earning a loud yelp from the sophomore.

"OWOWOWOWOWOWOW!" Momoshiro yelped as Rika continued to drag him. "Let me go!"

"Ann, give me a hand here!"

Ann giggled. "Coming!"

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Kantou Regional Tournament:

"Game, Marui-Echizen pair! 6-0!"

Marui and Rika smacked their hands against each other as they won their game against Ginka's doubles pair in their doubles two match which had ended in less than three minutes as the game was ridiculously easy.

Marui was about the only person in Rikkaidai's tennis club who can play doubles with Rika since he knew her habits and play style better than anyone else and Yukimura and Yanagi had both decided to try putting them in doubles in their match against Ginka in their first match during the Kantou tournament.

Ginka's doubles two pair were now panting on their hands and knees on the ground, breathing heavily and both looking as if they had just jumped into a swimming pool. Marui grinned as he and Rika both walked back to Rikkaidai's bleachers where Yukimura was seated on the bench, acting as bench coach.

Yukimura nodded to them, his jacket draped around his shoulders. "Nice game," he said, nodding.

Riku and Sora were present at the match as well, along with nearly half of Rikkaidai's student population. Yanagi chuckled as Niou and Yagyuu went out to the courts next for doubles one and the next doubles pair of Ginka were whimpering to their captain, not wanting to face the two after seeing what had happened during the first doubles game.

"Rika, since you've finished your match, why don't you go and watch Seigaku's match against Hyotei?" suggested Yukimura. "It might be a good learning experience for you as well and you can take this chance to see how much Seigaku and Hyotei have improved. I think that their matches won't start for another ten minutes."

Rika nodded. "Okay," she said.

Five minutes later, Rika who had changed into her school uniform to avoid unwanted attention as Rikkaidai's tennis uniform is yellow, headed towards the court where Seigaku and Hyotei are having their match with Riku and Sora who had both came along.

The trio arrived just as the doubles two match had ended, the victors being Seigaku's Momoshiro-Kikumaru pair against Hyotei's Oshitari-Mukahi pair, winning the match at 6-4. "That's a surprise," muttered Rika as she sat on the top of the bleachers, getting a fine view of the matches. "Oshitari-san is Hyotei's tensai player. To think that they will lose."

Sora frowned before he took out his camera. His camera was one of the latest ones in the market with a camera zooming function as well as a video record function that his sister had bought for him when he had aced his last Mathematics test which also happened to be his worst subject. Both of Sora's parents died when he was still in elementary school and his sister was in her first year in high school and she had brought him up single-handedly by taking on part-time jobs whilst schooling at the same time.

Sora focused the camera onto Seigaku's Kikumaru-Momoshiro pair as well as Oishi Shuichiro and snapped a picture before zooming in onto Hyotei's Oshitari-Mukahi pair and his camera went click.

Riku frowned as he watched Hyotei's next doubles pair stood in front of their tennis coach, aka his music coach, listening to some last minute advice from Sakaki-sensei.

"That guy with the cap..." said Riku slowly. "Isn't that Shishido Ryou?" He turned towards Rika. "I thought that he had been dropped from the regulars when he lost to Fudomine's Tachibana Kippei?"

"I thought so too since that's the rule for Hyotei's tennis club," said Rika, turning to Riku and Sora. "But he appeared to be still with the regulars when my cousin and his team turned up at Rikkaidai for their practice match. He had been dropped from the regulars for some time, but Kei convinced Sakaki-sensei to keep Shishido-san on the regulars." She took a sip from the can of Ponta that Sora had headed off sometime back to buy for them from some vending machine. "Time to see their skills in doubles then." She muttered. "I hadn't seen Ohtori-san and Shishido-san playing doubles before. Same for Seigaku's most unlikely doubles pair." She sighed as Inui Sadaharu and Kaidoh Kaoru walked out to the courts.

Riku sweat dropped. He, along with Sora had watched enough of tennis matches ever since knowing Rika and knew enough about Seigaku's players from what he'd heard from Rika to know that Inui and Kaidoh specialises in singles, not doubles.

"Have they even played doubles before?" asked Sora incredulously.

Rika shrugged. "I know for a fact that Kaidoh played doubles once with Momoshiro during their match against Yuuta's school," she said and sighed. "And you guys know how that turned out."

Riku groaned to himself and Sora sighed. Yeah, they remembered alright. Clear as day, in fact. Yanagi had managed to get a video of that first doubles match against St. Rudolph's which they missed on the day when they went to see St. Rudolph's matches against Seigaku and all three had watched it together during their break when Sora had managed to get the use of the video room of the photography clubroom.

Kaidoh and Momoshiro had played doubles then, and the two rivals even argued whilst on the courts, much to the three freshmen's amusement and had ended the match when Momoshiro accidentally 'killed' Yanagisawa with his Dunk Smash, knocking him out and causing St. Rudolph to forfeit their match due to Yanagisawa going to la-la land.

"The match is starting," said Riku suddenly and the three freshmen turned their attention towards the match.

Ohtori Choutarou was serving. And his serve was unbelievably fast as it whizzed past so quickly that Inui and Kaidoh barely had enough time to react.

"15-0!"

Sora gaped. "W-What was that just now?" he muttered. "It was unbelievably fast."

"Rika?" Riku asked.

"200 km/h," muttered Rika, keeping her eyes on the match. "Fast, but not fast enough. I can still see it."

Riku and Sora both sighed. They both knew that there are very few balls that Rika can't see. One being Sanada's Invisible Swing. Sure, Rika can still see it, but it causes a strain to her eyes as her eyes were extremely sharp and perceptive, which is the reason why Sanada had her do sound training in the event if she ever came across an opponent who uses fast balls like Sanada do.

"But Seigaku's data master should know about that serve, right?" asked Riku, frowning as he looked from Inui to Choutarou to Rika. "I mean, he's the data collector and brains of Seigaku, after all."

Rika sighed. "Yes, he should know about this serve of Ohtori-san's," she said. "But like what Yanagi-sempai had told us before – sometimes, even with all the data in the world, there are times when power exceeds data and this is just one of those times. That's why Yanagi-sempai sometimes threw his data play away when playing against certain opponents in which data proved useless."

Sora grinned. "Like Sanada-sempai, Yukimura-sempai and you for example?" he asked, grinning.

Rika nearly groaned. "Don't remind me of that," she muttered. "I never want to play against him again. That is one troublesome match, even though I win him with 7-6."

"30-0!"

The trio turned their attention back to the match whereas Choutarou was serving that unbelievably quick serve of his again.

"Fault!"

Rika frowned. "But it definitely seems like his control over that serve isn't a hundred percent," she remarked as Choutarou mis-aimed again, resulting in a double fault, giving Seigaku one point.

"But as long as they couldn't do anything against that serve of his, Ohtori-san will win this service game, right?" asked Sora and Rika nodded.

"But knowing Inui-san," said Rika, looking at Seigaku's data master. "He's bound to figure something out. And Kaidoh-san won't just go down without a fight."

In the end, Inui and Kaidoh lost doubles one, though Shishido and Choutarou were panting away like dogs by the time they finished the game, though it's a close one at 7-5. Some of St. Rudolph's members had appeared by the time doubles two had ended, Yuuta among them, along with Yanagisawa as St. Rudolph had lost badly against Hyotei during the finals of the Tokyo tournament.

Singles three was Seigaku's Kawamura against Hyotei's Kabaji and it turned out to be a match of power as both were firing simultaneous Hadoukyus until both parties could carry on no longer as the damage done to their arms were too great in which Ryuzaki had to take both Kabaji and Kawamura to the hospital, leaving Ryoga as bench coach.

Singles two was Seigaku's Fuji Syusuke versus Hyotei's Sleeping Beauty, Akutagawa Jiroh. This was one match that got Rika's attention since this was the only match in history in which Fuji Syusuke used all three of his Triple Counters, ending the match in his victor with 6-1 which is something, since Jiroh was Marui's fan, much to the redhead's dismay, and was a serve and volley player like him. Even Rika has problems playing against Marui sometimes and she knew from watching Jiroh's practice match against Marui once that he was a tough opponent, despite Marui defeating him afterwards with 6-1.

Singles one was a captains' match and this match got the most attention since even coaches from professionals were present at this match and Rika watched as Tezuka went to Ryoga who was seated on the bench, listening to some last minute advice whilst Atobe was doing the same with Sakaki.

"Oi. Rika."

Rika turned to see the rest of Rikkaidai's regulars appearing behind her. Several players from Yamabuki as well as Rokkaku were present as well. "Ara? Everyone's here," said Rika. "How's the match?"

"What do you think?" asked Marui with a grin, blowing his ever eternal bubblegum. "We won. All games with a score of 6-0. How's the match between Seigaku and Hyotei so far?"

"One draw, two wins and one loss for Seigaku," said Rika, turning back to the courts. "If Tezuka-san wins this, then Seigaku wins."

"I see," said Yukimura, smiling, one finger on his lips. "Tezuka against Atobe, huh? A captains' match."

"Who do you think will win, buchou?" asked Kirihara.

"Saa," said Yukimura with a shrug. "Both of them are equally matched."

The arrivals of Rikkaidai, the third seeded school, Rokkaku as well as Yamabuki had invited attention from the schools seated in the bleachers and Tezuka frowned as he noticed Sanada and Yukimura. He had played Sanada once in a street tennis match when they were both first years and he had won, obviously, but Yukimura was another story...

Atobe had noticed the presences of Rikkaidai and the other schools as well, along with Rika, Riku and Sora seated at the top of the bleachers.

"Rika-chan!" Atobe said in an extremely loud voice, causing everyone to turn towards the embarrassed freshman. "You're here to cheer for me too?"

"Someone..." Rika muttered, hiding her face in her hands. "Just kill me now."

Sora and Riku laughed.

Tezuka lost his match due to his arm injury, though everyone agreed that it's the best match that they've ever seen in middle school tennis history.

With that, that makes two wins, two losses and one draw for each side, and the authorities decided on a sixth game to decide the winner of this match which meant that the reserve players from each school will be playing: Shinderui Shiki from Seigaku versus Hiyoshi Wakashi from Hyotei.

Even Sanada was impressed when he saw Shiki play, and Sanada being impressed is a rare occasion that only happens once a blue moon.

Needless to say, with all the energy stored up inside him, Shiki went all out and won his match with 6-4, making it three wins for Seigaku which enables them to go to the next round of the Kantou tournament.

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"Seigaku, huh?" mused Yanagi an hour after Seigaku's match with Hyotei when all of Rikkaidai's regulars gathered in one of the shelters in the tennis park. "Both schools played a pretty high level match. Hyotei had improved drastically especially after their practice matches with us, but I didn't expect for Seigaku to improve this much as well."

"Indeed," said Yukimura, nodding. "Seigaku has improved a lot. If they keep winning all their matches like this, we're bound to meet up with them sooner or later."

"But their captain, Tezuka-san is injured," said Marui, blowing a bubblegum. "Seems like he had Tennis Elbow. And he has to go and get it treated somehow, and that injury of his isn't something that can be treated in just a day. He has to go and get long term treatment for it. And with Oishi Shuichiro injured as well...the only nuisance left in Seigaku is Fuji Syusuke."

"But by the way," said Yanagi. "That freshman had the same single footed split step as you both, Akaya, Rika." He said as all Rikkaidai regulars turned to see Shiki go, talking with Momoshiro.

"He probably learned it from niisan," commented Rika, watching Shiki go. "I originally learned it from my brother, anyway."

Kirihara grinned as he looked at Shiki whilst Rika said nothing, but looked at Shiki all the same. "You mean that he needs to be crushed, right?" said Kirihara, a strange glint in his eyes.