A/N: Nineties pop is a scary thing I've decided. It doesn't matter how long it's been since you heard the song, or whether you've ever heard it at all, the moment it's played all the lyrics are rolling off your tongue like you've been practicing it for weeks. Don't believe me? Go and download any random "Spice Girls" song right now and try to tell me the same thing five minutes later.

I was considering some horrible parody like Magical Girl Orihime. She even has the headgear. But then I thought about this and realized that those kinds of things always have five such characters and the thought of Ichigo in a sailor scout uniform made my brain bleed. Back to the drawing board.

I'll post the beta-ed version of this chapter as soon as Saxor can get back to me but she's been real busy lately so it might be a little while until then. So try to ignore the larger grammatical and spelling errors until then.

Warning: Pratchett and Final Fantasy XII are dangerous pastimes. Mainly because they'll consume you and all your free time if you're not careful.

Disclaimer: I don't even own the game. It's my younger brother's.

Chapter 10: Soul and Center

Kaidoh was in a foul mood. He resented Momoshiro's implication that Inui had more than Kaidoh's best interests at heart. Or, rather, he would have resented the implication, if it had actually been one. It was more an out and out accusation really. But he still resented it. Resented it like an implication.

And then, of course, there had been Momo's advice to him after Ryoma had been dropped off at his home those few days ago. He suggested that Kaidoh try and use his "feminine charms" to try to dig any useful information out of Inui. Momoshiro ended up limping home that evening. That at least lightened his mood a little, until he recalled his late afternoon training with Inui that day. He hated reliving the past, but it was a train wreck, and like all gory scenes would replay in his head long into his senility. Long after he had forgotten loved ones' names he would remember this day and die a little inside. This is what kills people. All the stresses of bad memories piling up on them until the embarrassment is too much and it crushes them.

They had broken into the tennis club changing room in order to 1) dress in suitable clothes, 2) try to wash off the makeup and the horrible stain of those memories and 3) to gather up some dignity. Dignity gathering is very hard in heels. It's like trying to run across gravel in them. They all had seriously bruised egos and sprained manhoods. Figuratively anyway. There had been a note taped to Ryoma's locker from Fuji, apologizing to Ryoma for yet another failed plan and went on to suggest what they could do next time to help They decided to burn the note without reading the next suggestion. On a brighter note, at least he hadn't taken their clothes.

By the time Momo had been left a whimpering puddle on the ground Kaidoh's nerves were shot and he wasn't feeling up to training, let alone playing at spy, but he'd never missed a training session before and he wasn't about to start slacking now. And it's not like the spying would've been any easier later, so it was best just to hop on the horse and ride it. Sadly, Kaidoh was not built for small talk and had no real artfulness in his style of inquiry. He was aware of this, but hoped that somehow an opportunity would magically present itself. So prayers all said, and all Momo's quashed (he'd always liked that word), he set out for training.

"Kaidoh … are you wearing mascara?" This wasn't exactly the opening that he had been hoping for. He could feel the years ticking off his life as Inui looked at him expectantly. Each deepening shade of blush another brush with the scythe across his lifeline, a wire thin thread that was being lowered as the flames from his cheeks increased the intensity of the candle burning beneath it.

As has been previously mentioned, Kaidoh was a very lackluster spy. He wasn't guileful; he was direct. He wasn't cunning; he was honest. So honest in fact that he couldn't lie. He was sorely tempted to give it a go, but felt that Inui probably wasn't the person to practice against. The best he could do for now was play politics. He couldn't lie, but he didn't actually have to answer the question.

"I have long eyelashes," he replied, the remark barely making it off his tongue before his life began to flash before his eyes. It was depressingly short. It also had an unpleasant ending: one that happened around the "–lashes" bit, previously followed by a question and some time in a dress.

Inui's eyebrows drew together. "Well, that is true," and paused before deciding to let it go. It didn't seem likely but maybe Kaidoh was trying to make himself pretty for him. The probability was in the thousandth percentile (roughly around the .003 chance), but hope and desire can make a believer out of anyone.

Needless to say that wasn't quite the response that Kaidoh had expected and it made him wish there was a Momo around to kick. He furtively glanced around, but sadly, no spike-haired morons decided to make an appearance. Confronting the remark, even if he hadn't been left mentally castrated by the last few hours, was impossible given his need for assistance and they decided to leave off there and go for their run.

It was quite some time, and a rather lot of sweat, later that Kaidoh decided to test his skill at digging. This being Kaidoh, however, meant that a backhoe was in use. "Inui-senpai, what can you tell me about Saeki-senpai." Perhaps that was an unfair comparison. Not even a backhoe can dig that fast.

Inui was wondering why Kaidoh's questions never had any curls on them, they just seemed to be very probing sentences, but answered anyway. He mentioned Saeki's great ability at doubles. He made particular mention of his incredible game reading abilities and unrivaled motion vision. He also mentioned the "childhood friends with Fuji" bit as an afterthought. Kaidoh didn't show any particular interest until that last remark and he made a note to add this to his endless supplies of information about his unusually intense kouhai. He labeled it under "very suspicious" in the subcategory of "things to possibly be wary of" in the subcategory "other players in terms of possible romantic interest" in the category of "threat removal." Inui's inner clerk had a hard time finding the drawer to file that under and requested three weeks leave to recover from the strain of heavy lifting. He filed the claim at Inui's mental health office and was told he'd get an answer within six to eight weeks time and was thanked for his continued dedication to the well being of the whole. On a side note, the claim was mysteriously never recovered and Inui's clerk ended up becoming a very obnoxious drunk who slept on the job until he was politely told he was no longer needed on the front line and had been moved down to the mailroom.

Inui knew it was coming, so he wasn't surprised when a few minutes later Kaidoh asked, "What do you know about his relationship with Fuji, Inui-senpai."

Inui knew next to nothing. Fuji was impossible to drag information out of, and Saeki lived rather far away and knew about Inui's reputation. And Yuuta, the only other person who could shed any light on this situation, was a pillar of mortal terror whenever Inui probed him for information about his brother. Inui disliked admitting to ignorance about anything, so he decided to probe out Kaidoh's reason for asking. "Why do you want to know?" To the casual observer it would appear that Inui was as blunt as Kaidoh at asking questions, but that casual observer would be labeled myopic by anyone who knew the players involved. Inui knew Kaidoh couldn't lie, and he was also aware that the boy could wriggle out of any indirect questions like the viper he was so often called by Momoshiro. Kaidoh always answered direct questions, treated the idea of questions as a give-and-take enterprise, and his answers weren't lies so it was the most efficient way of digging out information.

Kaidoh was undergoing an internal struggle again: the struggle to find a suitable, honest answer without revealing too much of his intention. He settled for the very shifty "know thy enemy' adage that Inui employed and hoped it would serve him well. Inui looked thoughtful, decided not to push it for fear of alienating the boy, and answered, a little nonplussed, "No more than what I just said I'm afraid." Leaving Kaidoh both a little relieved and a little peeved. This meant that he had to go straight to the source and question Saeki himself.

But first he was definitely going to give his face a good scrub.

Momo, having recovered from his mild limp of the day before was trying to rig up a game plan for his subtle interrogation of Ann. Subtle means to Momo what dig means to Kaidoh, however, and his mind was swimming with burgers and Echizen and some rather unusual combinations of the two, that would have left Kaidoh blushing and Ryoma, frankly, confused. Ryoma wouldn't recognize the apparent sex appeal of condiments as it were. Kaidoh, however, always blushes when things move to the more lewd aspect of things.

He was trying to find a suave way of asking Ann if her brother ---ed boys and if so, would he be interested in ---ing Fuji. He wasn't sure where the dashes were coming from. Meanwhile inside Momo's head, his internal censor was bashing his head against the wall and wondering how he'd got stuck with this gig. It didn't sound too bad until you knew that Momo spent a lot of time with blurry thoughts for a reason, and would, upon occasion, speak and think in morse code. Akutsu's, it should be mentioned, was chained to wall a withering away in the torture chamber of his head somewhere. So things could always be worse. At least from Akutsu's censor's point of view.

Momo gave up and addressed the girl he was sitting next to at the street courts, who had for the last five minutes been staring Momo in awe as she tried to figure out how a person muttered to himself in dash. "Ann does your brother kiss bois?" (Momo's inner spell-check was at this time consoling Momo's inner censor and wasn't too keen on his own job anyway. Momo was a walking colloquialism so why bother trying to adjust his language anyway?)

Ann barely skipped a beat before replying, "I am not setting you up with my brother Momo."

Momo was shocked. Firstly because she thought that he was gay, which was true, but she had no right thinking about it. And secondly because she didn't think that he would be good enough for her brother even if he were gay, which he was, which she also had no proof of.

Ann caught his expression and continued, severely. "I am not my brother's pimp Momo. You want to ask him out, do it yourself."

"I was asking if your brother were ghey. I was not asking for a fix-up. And how dare you imply that I'm not good enough for him!"

She gave him that famous female expression which made him feel like he were five years old and a good foot shorter than her before she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why do you want to know Momoshiro?" she asked tiredly.

He decided to cut to the chase, though he had been doing that like there was no tomorrow to begin with. "I was wondering if he might have any feelings for Fuji."

Her eyes sparked in interest at that. "You want to set up Fuji with my brother? Does this mean Fuji has feelings for him?"

"Possibly."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Well then, you're just going to have to ask him yourself," and flounced off. She was followed by a mysterious series of dots and dashes before he too left the court to go think about how to broach the subject with the captain of a rival school. He was in a cold sweat before he was halfway down the steps.

Ryoma, meanwhile, was relaxing at home and giving no real consideration to his part in the plan at the moment. He decided that Kawamura would be easy to get to open up and was saving that for after practice next weekend when Kawamura had a day off. He was currently trying to solve his own problems without the bumbling, if well intentioned, help of his two doting senpai-tachi.

He knew that one of them was his soul and that the other was his center. He was just trying to figure out which was which. He was also trying to figure out where he'd learned those terms and just what they meant, exactly. He was happy that he had a lot of time to ponder the answers. He had a feeling that it might take him longer than an anticipated to figure them out.

A/N: Well we're nearing the finish line and it won't be long before I've entangled Orihime in one of my harebrained plots. Hope to see you there when I finish. Drop a line if you can.

Oh and I blame Terry Pratchett for the dashing, just in case you were wondering. I'm starting to write like him by osmosis I swear. Not that that's a bad thing … just peculiar.